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Scripture Reading: Matt. 16:18-19; Eph. 1:22-23; 4:15-16; Col. 2:19
The opening proclamation of the New Testament is this: “The kingdom of the heavens has drawn near” (Matt. 3:2). The New Testament calls immediate attention to the matter of the kingdom. But after a while, when the disciples had come to know Him, the Lord raised the question of the church. The church was a mystery that had been hidden throughout all the generations of the past, and it was not until the Lord Jesus had brought His disciples to the point of recognizing Him as “the Christ, the Son of the living God,” that He spoke openly of the church. When Peter said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” the Lord came in at once with the word: “Upon this rock I will build My church” (16:16-18). It was as though He was saying, “I am the Son of God, the Christ, for this purpose — the building of My church. As the Son of God and as the Christ, I am a rock, the foundation stone of a building that is to be built, and that building of which I am the foundation is the church.”
Let us bear in mind that the first mention of the church is in Matthew 16, and Matthew is the book that proclaims the kingdom. The Lord’s second mention of the church is still in the book of Matthew — chapter 18. The four Gospels record only two occasions when our Lord on earth made reference to the church, and both of these are in the book that specifically proclaims the kingdom. From that fact we may know how intimately the kingdom and the church are related. Throughout the New Testament we find these two advancing together in the closest connection. When the Lord said, “Upon this rock I will build My church,” He immediately added, “I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of the heavens.” The keys of the kingdom are given to make the building of the church possible. Where the authority of the kingdom is absent, there the building of the church will be lacking. Anyone who refuses to submit to the authority of the kingdom can at best be a saved person; he will never be built into the structure of the church.
The Bible first presents the kingdom and thereafter presents the church. Where the kingdom of the heavens is in authority, there a church will be built up. A church comes into being where a company of people accept the government of heaven. So it would appear to be the presence of the kingdom that produces the church. But the New Testament goes beyond that. That is only one half of the New Testament revelation; the other half is this — the church brings in the kingdom. The church that comes into being under the rule of heaven, by reason of her submission to the heavenly rule, deals with God’s enemy. It is the presence of God’s enemy that hinders God’s will from being done on the earth, and it is the exercise of God’s authority by the church that casts him out. Then the New Jerusalem appears, and in the New Jerusalem you see the kingdom and the church blending into one. The New Jerusalem is the bride, which according to Ephesians 5 is the church. It is also a city, which speaks of government, and in this center of government there is the throne of God and of the Lamb. The New Jerusalem combines in itself both the church and the kingdom. And in saying this, we have summed up in a sentence the entire content of the New Testament. We might express it in three statements — the kingdom produces the church, the church brings in the kingdom, and the ultimate issue is the kingdom and the church. The New Testament opens by presenting the kingdom and thereafter presenting the church. But how does the church become an actuality? It is through the exercise of kingdom authority. When the church has ceded to the kingdom the right to rule and has submitted to its sway, the church then brings the dominion of heaven to the earth. All the way through the New Testament we see the church blending with the kingdom and the kingdom blending with the church, until eventually this blending issues in the New Jerusalem. In the New Jerusalem, where you can detect the nature of the church and the conditions of the kingdom, God is able to express His sovereignty fully and can therefore execute His will and display His glory.
With that summary in mind, let us now inquire: Why is the church needed? We can only indicate the answer in a few words. God has a purpose concerning the universe, but for its accomplishment it was necessary for Him to wield authority, because as we pointed out earlier, no plan can be carried into effect where authority is lacking. Whether or not God would be able to implement His purpose hinges on this matter of authority. So when God’s enemy sought to frustrate God’s purpose, he did a crucial thing — he violated God’s authority. How did God seek to meet the situation? He did so by securing another creation through whom He could exercise authority. He sought a company of men who would give Him the right of way on the earth to carry His will into effect. If only He could secure a band of men on the earth who would let Him wield dominion over them, then He could accomplish His purpose concerning Christ in and through them. It was for this reason that God needed the church. He wanted to have the church in order to bring His kingdom from heaven to earth.
The question that now arises is this: How is the church secured? We might answer, “The Lord Jesus shed His blood for the remission of our sins and gave His life that we might be born again and thereby constitute the church.” This is true enough, but it is a very superficial aspect of the truth. The Scriptures present this far more profound aspect — that the church has been secured through the sovereign rule of heaven. Because the kingdom of heaven is able to assert its authority over a company of men, that company of men can be built up into a church. It is necessary at this point to recapitulate. Why was the church brought into being? It was for the purpose of bringing in the kingdom. How was the church brought into being? It was by means of the authority of the kingdom. God’s purpose was to bring His heavenly dominion to the earth, and apart from the church His goal could not be attained. He needed a people who would subject themselves to the dominion of heaven so that under that dominion they might be built up into the church. That is what Matthew 16 reveals. Do not imagine that by our salvation alone we become the church. We who are saved are in the church, but our salvation alone does not constitute us the church. The church is a Body; therefore, there is the need of relatedness, and there is the need of building up.
Let me illustrate. Our body has very many bones, but do many bones constitute a body? Let the Old Testament book of Ezekiel supply the answer. Ezekiel says that the children of Israel were in the sight of God like a heap of dry bones. One day the breath of life came into them, and the bones were knit together, and they became one body (Ezek. 37).
To illustrate again, the church is a house. It is God’s dwelling, God’s temple. Now the Bible says that we who are saved are “living stones” and are built together into a “spiritual house” (1 Pet. 2:5). We admit that a house is built of stones, but a heap of stones is not a house. Brothers and sisters, do not take for granted that if a thousand brothers and sisters come together here, it means that the church is here. What is the church? It is the saved assembled together. But what kind of an assembling together is it? A great number of stones heaped up together is not a house. What then is a house? It is stone built upon stone — this one set on top of that one, that one set beside the other one, above and beneath, to the left and to the right, before and behind, all perfectly placed in relation to one another. Apart from a building together of the stones, there can be no house. There might be a thousand brothers and sisters together, and all are saved, but we would still ask whether they have been built together or not. They are certainly church material, but whether they are the church or not depends on whether they have been built together. Without building there is no church.
Perhaps some would ask what it really means to be built. Regrettably, although the word build, as used in Matthew 16, is found very often in the New Testament, it is frequently rendered “edify.” So we read of believers being “edified” and of the church being “edified.” But the original language does not imply (as does the word edify) to “improve morally,” or to “benefit spiritually” but truly to “build.” How do we build? Well, here is a stone. Along comes a workman, tool in hand, and he applies the tool to the stone until its surface is perfectly even. But that stone has to fit into a certain space in the building. The stone is triangular. The space is rectangular. So the stone has to be chipped and chipped and chipped until the shape of the stone and the space in the building perfectly correspond. Then into the space the stone is fitted. The stone is not there to be ornamental; it is there to be part of the building. It is not a lot of ornamental stones that are needed. In many gatherings there is quite a display of beautiful stones, but I am afraid there has not been a building up of the stones into a house. What God wants is not a lot of precious stones; He wants a spiritual house.
We often meet brothers who are delightful Christians. Their lives are well ordered, they are careful about the early morning watch and earnest in evangelistic work; they have attended many meetings for spiritual “edification” and have become so truly “edified” that they call forth the commendation of others, yet they remain individualists who cannot be “built.” They are precious stones, so precious they cannot be fitted together with common clay or stone. They are too beautiful to be built up into one building with others, so they remain individual Christians, lovely for display, but no good for building. What God desires is a house, not a lot of separate stones, however beautiful they may be. He wants a complete church, not numbers of scattered Christians.
One sister, speaking to me of another, said, “Oh, she’s such a precious sister, so spiritual.” When I asked more about her, she said, “Oh, she’s so humble, so quiet, so gentle; we have never known her to be irritated.” And again she added, “She’s so spiritual.” I asked, “Who is she spiritual with? Is she an isolated spiritual sister, or has her spirituality related her to others?” “Oh,” replied the sister, “singers who strike such high notes as she find few who can sing with them.” Alas! that sister was so spiritual that no one could be her spiritual companion. Such a sister is all right for display purposes, but she is of no use for church building. The kind of sister needed in the church is one who can have another placed behind her and another in front, another to her left and another to her right, and one below her and one above. That is the kind of Christian God is seeking today.
During the past two thousand years one of the greatest hindrances to the purpose of God, and the main reason why our Lord has had to delay His return, is the lack of Christians who have been built together. You can find Christians all over the world, and you can find spiritual Christians too; but where in any one place has a spiritual house been built? There are lots of stones that have been wrought upon until they are very beautiful, but where is the building? May the Lord have mercy upon us.
Brothers and sisters, there is a condition to be fulfilled if there is to be a building. The one indispensable condition is submission to the authority of the kingdom. Our Savior has been exalted to be Head of the universe, and all authority has been given to Him in heaven and on earth. God has put all things under His feet and has made Him Head over all things to the church. In the first place this implies that the church must come under His headship. What is headship? It is the government of the Head. We need to realize that in order for the church to be built up, we must submit to the authority of the Head. Where there is no Head, there is no authority, and there the question of church building cannot even arise. In Ephesians 4:15-16, which speaks throughout of the building of the church, it is shown to be of primary importance that we “grow up into Him in all things, who is the Head, Christ.” In how many things are we really growing up into Him? Even our humility, even our love, and even many of our other good qualities are not necessarily a growing up under His headship. We have not yet understood what it means to have our affections governed by Christ and to have all those other desirable qualities developed under His headship. Where there is truly a growing up in all things into the Head, there will follow the building up of the Body as these two verses show. “All the Body, being joined together and being knit together...causes the growth of the Body unto the building up of itself in love.” Colossians 2:19 speaks of “holding the Head.” What does that mean? It means that in all things we submit to the authority of the Head. Note that it does not say, “Holding the Savior,” nor does it say, “Holding the life.” It is when we submit to the government of the Head that there will be the building of which the same verse speaks — “All the Body, being richly supplied and knit together by means of the joints and sinews, grows with the growth of God.” If we have subjection to the authority of the Head, we have the building up of the Body. Where the government of heaven is secured, there the church is secured. The extent to which the church is built up in our midst will depend entirely upon the place given in our midst to the church’s Head.
“All the Body, being joined together and being knit together” — that is church building. But how does it happen? “Out from whom all the Body, being joined together and being knit together.” It happens as each member submits to the Head; it happens as each accepts the government of the kingdom of heaven. Only through those who come under the control of the Head can the building of the church be secured. So the question as to whether or not the church will be built up becomes a question of whether or not you and I can accept the authority of the kingdom.
