The New Society

The Merriam-Webster on-line dictionary defines “society” this way. It is: “Companionship or association with one's fellows;  friendly or intimate intercourse…a voluntary association of individuals for common ends; especially, an organized group working together or periodically meeting because of common interests, beliefs, or profession….” This word is a good place to start when defining the Church of Jesus Christ. In fact, the Greek word that stands behind the term, the word ekklesia, was used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament to speak of the people of God as they were assembled.[1] In other words, the Church of Jesus Christ is, by definition, his people assembled together as a society, a community to carry out his will.

If we track with this biblical line-of-thought, the Church is not exactly merely where any Christian is or where any two or three Christians are located. Instead, the church is comprised of Christians coming together in the ways Jesus prescribes for the purposes he gives us. Briefly, here are the particulars the New Testament sets forth.

·         Together we are the people of God who show forth the presence of God among us, who are responsible to show forth to the world the way to God and his salvation, and who are to proclaim the excellencies of his glorious salvation.[2]

·         Since we are naturally sinful, naturally do not love God, and naturally do not see Christ and his gospel as delightful, we must be truly born-again (regenerated and converted) people in order to carry out the purposes of Christ.[3] As such, the true church is comprised only of those who have been redeemed by Jesus Christ, those whom he purchased with his own blood.[4]

·         Simply-put, the church is a society of people who together are to display and proclaim the glory of God and the glory of his saving grace to both men and before angels.[5]

·         Since we deceive our self because of our sinfulness and, as a result, can think we are right with God when we are not and since people who do not know Jesus Christ, but profess to know him actually dishonor him, Jesus gave authority to the church assembled under his authority and that of his word to be the representatives of Heaven in testing the validity or lack of validity of a person’s profession of faith. This is what is meant by giving to the church the “keys of the kingdom” and also what Jesus means when he speaks of “whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”[6]  This function of the church assembled means that we must be accountable to each other under the authority of Christ and his Word. No Christian has ever been meant to be on his/her own. We are to love one another, exhort one another, bear the burdens of one another, pray for one another, forgive one another, spur one another on to gospel-directed love and good works, assemble regularly with one another, restore one another as needed, and so on.[7] In other words, we are to be a regular part of not just the Church universal, but a concrete local church. This is how Christ means for us to live in obedience before him. If we are not submitted to Christ and his Word by being submitted to one another and to gospel-and-Word-directed leaders in a local church, we are disobeying Jesus Christ and may be calling into question our salvation.

·         What the preceding truth also demands is that we are to live out our Christian life under the authority of Christ and his Word as we are equipped to do so by his Word-directed leaders and as we submit to his Word-directed leaders.[8]  The church is not to be a democracy where the masses rule, it is to be a priesthood of believers where Christ rules by his Spirit through his Word and where we help each other love and submit to him. After all, he is our head and our Lord.[9]

·         We also see that this society must love one another, be united with one another, learn to accept one another in the midst of differences, and also must pursue peace with one another in order to display a credible witness and in order to glorify God as we are intended by him.[10]

As we can see from these preceding bullet points, the church does not function as the church except in local assemblies or congregations any more than a couple is married simply because the institution of marriage exists in the world. In other words, in the same way the institution of marriage is lived out in concrete marriage relationships in families and homes all over the world, so the institution of the true universal Church is lived out in particular local churches all over the world.

And, we must see that these local churches are part of the new society which Jesus Christ has brought forth, a society of very different people, but who have been brought together by him and his Spirit through the gospel to function as a unit, a “new man,” a “temple.”[11]  We are a new society because we collectively as the church are the embassy, the outpost, of the kingdom (the saving reign of God) and, as such, we collectively serve as his ambassadors who give to each other, others, and the angelic world a foretaste of what the future kingdom in its fullness will be like.[12] After all, we who are in Christ are a new creation, the old has passed away, and behold the newness of the future new heaven and new earth, the newness of God’s true full life has come upon us and impacts us now.[13]

Since all this is true, there are characteristics of the new society and the new society people that will be vastly different than the larger society we see around us. If we do not grasp this from the clear teaching of the Bible, when we hear these differences taught, we will conclude that somehow they are not true. Here is sampling of such differences:

·         When we hear the Word of God, we treasure it, believe it, seek to trust in it and do it, and receive it as what it is, the trustworthy Word of God, not merely the teaching of man.[14]

·         Because we understand the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is the core of the truth by which God grows and empowers us, we relate to each other differently than those in the larger society. On the one hand, we realize we are family and so are accountable to each other and must help each other live out the effects of the gospel, we exhort one other, we help restore each other, and we pursue one another when we are hurting or falling away from the truth of Christ.[15] On the other hand, we are gracious with one another, we do not jump to conclusions about each other, we do not gossip about one another or believe slander about one another—as a result, we are very careful to assume the best about each other and to assume one another is innocent until proven guilty.[16]

·         We realize as sinful people, conflict will happen. Yet, Christ has supplied the resources we need to work through it and, as a result, to glorify God in it.[17]  What this means is that we do not love and forgive only when it is easy, we love and forgive even when it is hard—even when the person is our enemy.[18]

·         We have values and ways of seeing vices that those outside the new society do not. For example, we realize how horrible it is to have something in life that is more important to us than Jesus Christ.[19] Another example is that we understand how destructive it is when a person asserts their “individuality” and “freedom” in such a way as to oppose Word-directed, gospel-true leaders in the church and also to cause division in the body.[20] In other words, we realize how important truth-based, Christ-honoring unity in the church is.[21]

·         Finally, very different than the culture around us, we do not define ethics merely by the absence of doing bad things. We understand that true life in Christ, true life in the new society, is marked by the pursuit of Christ, by delight in him, by love for him, and by denying self (not as an end in itself), but that we and others might have greater joy and pleasure in Christ to his glory. As a result, the new society is at its very heart missions-minded, committed to making disciples.[22] So, unlike the culture around us, we do not think we should “keep our faith to ourselves.” We give away life that we and others might have more life!

In 1517 Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses to the chapel door in Wittenberg, Germany and by this gave birth to the Reformation. The sixteenth century Reformation revolve around the main issues of the view of Scripture (is it the only ultimate binding source of authority for the church?) and how one is saved or justified. Today we need a new Reformation, yet this time it needs to center around the Scripture’s teaching of what the Church is and how it is to function. Like in the Middle Ages with Scripture and salvation, so today evangelicals have become very sloppy and negligent when it comes to what the Bible says about the Church. As a result, when the truth is preached, it feels like it is not true because it is not “what we have always heard”.

Brothers and sisters of the Minden Evangelical Free Church, I call you now to reform. Read the Bible. Pour over it and what it teaches about the church. Don’t just take my word for it. Do this because if you do not, when you hear elders in our church (staff or non-staff) teach on it, you will wrongly conclude what we are teaching is wrong. Do it because our unity depends on it. And, do it because our joy in Christ and the work he has called us to do as his new society depends on it!

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[1] See how the New Testament confirms this with the use of ekklesia to speak of the people of God in the Old Testament assembled or congregated: Acts 7:38; Heb. 2:12; 12:23.

[2] 1 Peter 2:4-10.

[3] John 3:1-8; Romans 3:9-19; 2 Corinthians 4:4, 6; Titus 3:5-6.

[4] Acts 20:28.

[5] Ephesians 1:6, 12, 14; 3:10; 1 Peter 2:9.

[6] Matthew 16:19; 18:18. Churches do not do this perfectly. No authority (parents, government, etc.) carries out their authority perfectly (after all, the New Testament assumes there will be many times we sin against and/or offend each other and need to practice forgiveness: Ephesians 4:31-32; Col. 3:13), but this fact does not erase the fact God has given authority to the Church, parents, and government in their respective realms (e.g. Romans 13:1-4; Ephesians 6:1-3).

[7] John 13:34; Gal. 6:1, 2; Col. 3:13; Hebrews 3:13; 10:24, 25; James 5:16.

[8] Ephesians 4:7-12f.; Hebrews 13:7, 17. No leaders have absolute authority. They have authority under Christ and only as those who represent and teach the true gospel (see Galatians 1:8-10).

[9] Romans 10:9; Philippians 2:10-11; Colossians 1:18.

[10] John 13:34-35; 17:20-23; Romans 15:7; Hebrews 12:14; 1 John 3:16-18; 4:7-12.

[11] Ephesians 2:1-22.

[12] 2 Corinthians 5:20; 1 Peter 2:4-10.

[13] See 2 Corinthians 5:17.

[14] Proverbs 13:13; 1 Thes. 2:13; 2 Timothy 3:16-17; Titus 1:2; James 1:22-25.

[15] Matthew 18:15-20; 1 Cor. 5:1-13; 2 Thes. 3:13-15.

[16] Deuteronomy 17:6; 19:15-21; Matthew 18:16, 19-20; 1 Cor. 13:7; Eph. 4:31-32; 1 Tim. 5:19.

We should not miss that the way the world-at-large deals with each other is to assume that the other person’s issues and/or sins is “not my problem” or it is “none of my business.” Yet, when rumors and gossip fly, there is a quickness to condemn. On the contrary, the new society of Christians is to realize our sins impact each other, we are a family, we are responsible to each other, and our problems are “each other’s business” (if understood in appropriate ways). However, when rumors, gossip, and slander begin to fly, we do not believe them, but prayerfully, carefully, and slowly seek out the truth. This is one of the areas where the new society is most counter-cultural.

[17] Romans 15:7; 2 Corinthians 9:8; Galatians 5:22-23; 2 Peter 1:3-11.

[18] Matthew 5:43-48; 6:14-15; Luke 6:27-31; Romans 12:9-21.

[19] Matthew 6:21-34; 10:34-39; 1 John 2:15-17; 5:21.

[20] Titus 3:10; Hebrews 13:17.

[21] John 17:20-23; 1 Corinthians 13:6; Ephesians 4:1-16; Philippians 2:1-11.

[22] Matthew 4:19; 6:33; 13:52; 28:19-20; John 15:1-16; 2 Corinthians 1:24-2:4; Philippians 1:21-23.