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Course 11 · Lesson 1.1

Biblical images of the church: body, people, temple and bride

13 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 11 outline

Module 1: What the Church Is

  1. Biblical images of the church: body, people, temple and bride
  2. One, holy, catholic and apostolic: the four marks
  3. The mission of the church
  4. The visible and invisible church in Augustine, the Reformers and the East

Module 2: Ministry and Apostolic Succession

  1. Ministry in the New Testament: apostles, elders, overseers and deacons
  2. The bishop in the early church: Clement, Ignatius and Irenaeus
  3. Apostolic succession: three meanings (a line of bishops, the teaching, the mission)
  4. Ordination in the Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant traditions

Module 3: Scripture, Tradition and Church Authority

  1. Scripture and tradition in the early church
  2. The Catholic account: Scripture, tradition and the magisterium
  3. The Orthodox account: the living tradition of the church
  4. The Reformation and the question of sola scriptura

Module 4: Three Systems of Authority

  1. The bishop of Rome in early history
  2. Papal primacy and infallibility in Catholic teaching
  3. Orthodox conciliarity and the role of the patriarchs
  4. Protestant principles of authority: Scripture, confessions and the priesthood of believers
  5. The strongest objections each tradition raises against the others

Module 5: Sacramental Theology

  1. Mystery and sacrament: the words and their history
  2. Augustine and the definition of a sacrament
  3. How many sacraments? Seven, two, or none
  4. Validity, efficacy and the role of faith

Module 6: Baptism and the Eucharist

  1. Baptism in Scripture and the early church
  2. Infant baptism and believers baptism
  3. The Eucharist in the early church
  4. Real presence: transubstantiation, the Orthodox mystery, Lutheran, Reformed and memorial views

Module 7: Reconciliation and Liturgical Worship

  1. The forgiveness of sins in Scripture
  2. Confession and penance in the history of the church
  3. Confession across the traditions: Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran and Reformed practice
  4. Liturgy, word and table, and the church year
  5. Worship without a fixed liturgy and its principles

Module 8: Schism and Christian Unity

  1. Early schisms: the Donatists and the churches after Chalcedon
  2. East and West: the long division and the events of 1054
  3. The Reformation divisions
  4. Ecumenism and the prospects for unity

All courses

Program / Course 11: Church, Sacraments, and Authority / Lesson 1.1

What you will learn

  • Explain what the New Testament word for church means and where it comes from.
  • Describe four major images of the church: the body of Christ, the people of God, the temple of the Spirit and the bride of Christ.
  • Show how each image teaches something different about unity, belonging and holiness.
  • Compare how Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant Christians draw on these images.

The big idea

The New Testament never gives a single definition of the church. It offers pictures instead: a body with many members, a people called out by God, a temple built of living stones, a bride prepared for her husband. Each picture shows one side of what the church is. Taken together they teach that the church belongs to Christ, depends on him, and is made of people bound to one another. The traditions agree on the images and differ on how visible, organized and authoritative the church is.

Key terms

Ecclesiology
The study of the church: what it is, what it is for, and who has authority in it.
Ekklesia
The Greek word translated church. It means an assembly of people who have been called together.
Qahal
A Hebrew word for the assembly of Israel. Greek translations of the Old Testament often render it as ekklesia.
Body of Christ
Paul’s image of believers as many members joined to Christ and to one another.
People of God
An image taken from Israel’s calling, applied in the New Testament to believers from every nation.
Metaphor
A picture drawn from ordinary life to describe something else. A metaphor teaches by comparison and should not be pressed in every detail.
Covenant
A binding relationship that God establishes with a people, with promises and obligations on both sides.

Background

The English word church translates the Greek ekklesia. In ordinary Greek speech it meant a public gathering, such as a town assembly. The Greek Old Testament used it for the assembly of Israel, especially when the people gathered before God, as at Sinai. When the first Christians called themselves the ekklesia, they were claiming a place in that story. They were the assembly that God was now gathering around Jesus. The word can mean a local congregation (as in 1 Corinthians 1:2, the church of God which is at Corinth) or the whole body of believers everywhere.

The New Testament writers do not stop to define the church. They use images, each drawn from a world their readers knew: the human body, the family and nation, the temple, the wedding. Scholars have counted dozens of such images. This lesson studies four of the most important. Reading them side by side protects against a common mistake, which is to take one picture and treat it as the whole teaching.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: The body of Christ

Paul writes that believers are one body with many members, and that “ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular” (1 Corinthians 12:27). The picture teaches that Christians need one another, that different gifts serve a common life, and that no member can say to another that it has no need of it (1 Corinthians 12:21). In Ephesians and Colossians the image grows: Christ is the head of the body (Ephesians 1:22-23; Colossians 1:18).

The traditions press this image differently. Catholic teaching, especially in the Second Vatican Council’s Lumen Gentium, stresses that the church is Christ’s body in a real and visible way, with its bishops, sacraments and common life. Orthodox writers often link the image to the Eucharist: those who share one bread are one body (1 Corinthians 10:17). Many Protestants emphasize that Christ alone is the head and that every believer is joined to him by faith, whatever the visible structure.

Step 2: The people of God

In the Old Testament, God calls Israel his own people. The New Testament applies the same language to the church. Peter writes, “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people” (1 Peter 2:9). Paul says that those who were not a people are now the people of God (Romans 9:25-26, quoting Hosea). This image stresses calling, history and covenant. The church did not invent itself. God gathered it.

Here lies one of the oldest questions in Christian thought: how does the church relate to Israel? Most Christian traditions teach that the church shares in the promises made to Israel without erasing them. Paul himself insists that God has not rejected his people (Romans 11:1). Christians differ on how to describe the continuity, and the question is treated with care today because of a long and painful history of Christian hostility toward Jews.

Step 3: The temple of the Spirit

Paul tells the Corinthians, “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16). In Ephesians 2:19-22 the church is a household and a holy temple, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself the chief cornerstone. Peter calls believers living stones built into a spiritual house (1 Peter 2:5).

The temple image teaches that God dwells among his people, that the church is holy because of his presence, and that it has a foundation outside itself. The foundation language is where traditions part ways. Catholics often read it with Matthew 16:18 and see Peter’s place within the apostolic foundation. Orthodox Christians stress the whole college of apostles and their successors. Protestants commonly point to the apostles’ teaching, preserved in Scripture, as the foundation.

Step 4: The bride of Christ

The prophets often describe the relationship of God and Israel as a marriage. The New Testament carries this over. Paul says he has promised the church to one husband, Christ (2 Corinthians 11:2). Ephesians 5:25-32 compares Christ’s love for the church to a husband’s love for his wife and calls the matter a great mystery. Revelation ends with the marriage supper of the Lamb and the bride made ready (Revelation 19:7; 21:2).

This image teaches that the church is loved, that its holiness is a gift received from Christ, and that its life is not finished yet. It also says something about authority: a bride does not govern her husband. The church’s teaching and ministry serve Christ and do not replace him. All three traditions can agree on this sentence, though they disagree on how Christ’s authority is exercised among his people.

Step 5: Reading the images together

Each image corrects the others. Body speaks of close union and mutual need. People speaks of history and calling. Temple speaks of God’s presence and a foundation. Bride speaks of love and a future still to come. A reader who uses only one is likely to distort the whole. For example, the body image alone can suggest that the church is simply identical with Christ, while the bride image reminds the reader that the church is distinct from him and can be called to repent (as in the letters to the churches in Revelation 2 and 3).

  1. What does each image say that the others do not?
  2. Which image is most prominent in the church you know or reading, and which is least?
  3. Does this image describe what the church is, or what it is called to become?
  4. What does the image say about the relation of the church to Christ?
  5. What does the image say about how believers relate to one another?
  6. If this metaphor were pressed too far, what false conclusion could result?

Examples

The body at work

A congregation includes a retired accountant who keeps the books, a teenager who sets up chairs, and an older woman who prays daily for the sick. No one chose these gifts as a career plan. The body image helps explain why Paul says the less visible members are indispensable (1 Corinthians 12:22). (A constructed example.)

The people of God across borders

A Korean-American Presbyterian, a Greek Orthodox grandmother and a Nigerian Catholic priest meet at a conference. They disagree about much, yet each can say that they belong to a people God called out of every nation (Revelation 7:9). (A constructed example of how the people image crosses lines of culture, though not necessarily lines of church communion.)

Pressing a metaphor too far

A reader notes that a bride is fully dependent on her husband and concludes that the church should never question its leaders. That does not follow from the image. Paul uses the bride image to speak about Christ’s love and the church’s purity, not about obedience to a human officeholder. (A constructed example.)

Different perspectives

Catholic

Lumen Gentium, the Second Vatican Council’s constitution on the church, begins with images such as sheepfold, field, building and bride, and gives special weight to the people of God and the body of Christ. Catholics hold that the church is both a visible society and a mystery, and that it subsists in the Catholic Church governed by the pope and the bishops in communion with him.

Orthodox

Orthodox writers tend to read the images through worship. The church is the body of Christ most fully when it gathers for the Eucharist, and its unity is expressed in a bishop surrounded by clergy and people. Orthodox theology avoids defining the church mainly through legal categories, preferring to speak of it as a mystery and a communion.

Protestant

The Reformers read the same images with attention to faith and the Word. The church is the company of those who belong to Christ, gathered where the gospel is preached and the sacraments are rightly administered (as the Augsburg Confession puts it in Article 7). Protestant traditions differ widely in how much weight they give to visible structure, from Anglican and Lutheran liturgical churches to congregational and free churches.

Scholarly view

Historians and biblical scholars generally agree that ekklesia carried the sense of an assembly drawn from Israel’s tradition, and that Paul’s body language reflects both Greek political and Jewish thought. They also note that the New Testament images are not a system. Different authors stress different pictures, and later traditions arranged them into doctrine.

Why it matters

Every later argument about the church, about its authority, its ministry and its sacraments, starts from how the church is pictured. A person who sees the church mainly as a body will think about unity and shared life. A person who sees it mainly as a people may think about history and covenant. Learning the images first lets a student hear what each tradition is trying to protect, before turning to the points on which they differ.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: The word church in the New Testament means a building.

Correction: Ekklesia means an assembly of people. Early Christians met in homes, and the word for a building used for worship came later. Paul writes of the church that meets in a house (Romans 16:5).

Misunderstanding: The Bible gives one clear definition of the church that settles every debate.

Correction: The New Testament uses many images and does not supply a formal definition. The traditions agree on the images but build different systems from them. A fair student names that difference openly.

Misunderstanding: The body of Christ image means the church cannot err.

Correction: The traditions differ on how the church is protected from error, and that question belongs to later lessons. The New Testament itself shows churches being warned and corrected (for example in Galatians and in Revelation 2 and 3).

Misunderstanding: The people of God image means the church has replaced Israel.

Correction: Christian views on this have varied, and many churches today reject replacement language. Paul in Romans 9 to 11 insists that God’s promises to Israel stand. Christians describe the relation in different ways.

Knowledge check

What does the Greek word ekklesia mean, and why does its Old Testament background matter?

Ekklesia means an assembly of people who have been called together. Greek translations of the Old Testament used it for Israel’s assembly before God. When early Christians used it of themselves, they were presenting the church as the gathering God was forming around Jesus, in continuity with his earlier people.

Name the four images studied in this lesson and give one New Testament passage for each.

Body of Christ: 1 Corinthians 12:27. People of God: 1 Peter 2:9. Temple of the Spirit: 1 Corinthians 3:16 or Ephesians 2:19-22. Bride of Christ: Ephesians 5:25-32 or Revelation 19:7. Other correct passages can be used for each image.

Why is it risky to rely on only one image of the church?

Each image highlights one aspect and hides others. The body image alone may suggest the church is identical with Christ, but the bride image shows that the church is distinct from him and is called to be purified. Reading the images together guards against distortion.

How might Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant readers differ in using the temple image?

All see the church as built on a foundation. Catholics often connect it with Peter’s role among the apostles, Orthodox with the apostles and their successors as a whole, and Protestants commonly with the apostolic teaching preserved in Scripture. The difference lies in what the foundation includes.

Think it through

  1. Which of the four images has shaped your own idea of the church most strongly, and where did you first meet it?
  2. What does it mean for a church to be loved by Christ and also in need of correction?
  3. How would your understanding of belonging change if the people of God image were the main one in your mind?
  4. Can one image of the church be more basic than the others, or must they be held together?

Independent assignment

Four images in a notebook table

In your notebook, make a table with four columns, one for each image. For each, copy out one New Testament passage by reference, summarize what it teaches in two sentences, and write one sentence on what a Catholic, an Orthodox and a Protestant reader might each stress. Then write 200 to 300 words explaining which images seem to pull in different directions and how a thoughtful reader might hold them together. Keep the work in your notebook.

Further study