Program / Course 2: The Solitary Christian in Depth / Lesson 3.1
What you will learn
- Explain what the New Testament means by calling the church the body of Christ.
- Distinguish between the church as a local gathering and the church as the whole people of God.
- State how Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant Christians describe the church, including the idea of a visible and an invisible church.
- Explain why church membership cannot be reduced to attendance, and why attendance cannot be dismissed either.
The big idea
The New Testament calls the church the body of Christ. Believers are joined to Christ and to one another, so that no member can say to another that he is not needed. This is a claim about what the church is, not just about what it does on Sundays. The three great traditions agree that the church is more than a club or a building, and they differ over how it is ordered and how visible its boundaries are. A person who lives mostly alone must still ask what it means to belong to this body.
Key terms
- Church (ekklesia)
- From a Greek word meaning an assembly that has been called together. In the New Testament it can mean a local gathering or the whole body of believers.
- Body of Christ
- A New Testament image, used especially by Paul, for the unity of believers with Christ and with each other.
- Visible and invisible church
- A distinction used by Augustine and developed by Protestant writers: the visible church is the gathered, outward community; the invisible church is the whole number of those who truly belong to God.
- Communion
- A word for sharing a common life. Churches speak of communion with God and with one another, and also of the Eucharist, which is called Holy Communion.
- Catholic (in the creed)
- A word meaning universal or whole. The creed says the church is one, holy, catholic and apostolic. It is not limited to the Roman Catholic Church.
- Apostolic
- Descended from the apostles in faith, and, in Catholic and Orthodox teaching, also in the succession of bishops.
Background
When Christians study alone, they sometimes speak as if the church were optional, a service to attend if one finds it helpful. The New Testament speaks quite differently. It describes the church as something that believers are already part of, as a limb is part of a body. A person may find a particular congregation harmful or unhelpful, and the New Testament does not forbid that judgment. But it does not allow a believer to treat belonging to Christ as a purely private matter.
This lesson stays with the question of what the church is. The next lessons ask what the traditions say requires a church, and what fellowship is possible without a congregation. Keep the questions separate. It is possible to agree that the church is the body of Christ and still disagree about where the church is found and how it is governed.
Step-by-step explanation
Step 1: Read the body passages
Paul writes to the Corinthians: “Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular” (1 Corinthians 12:27). Earlier in the chapter he says that the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of thee” (1 Corinthians 12:21). In Colossians he calls Christ “the head of the body, the church” (Colossians 1:18). In Ephesians he describes believers as growing into one body under Christ as the head (Ephesians 4:11-16).
The image has two sides. It says that believers are united to Christ, and it says that they are united to each other. A hand cannot treat a foot as unnecessary. Each member needs the rest.
Step 2: Local and universal
The New Testament uses the word church for a local assembly, such as the church at Corinth or in a believer’s house (Romans 16:5), and for the whole body of believers, as in Ephesians. Paul writes of “the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15). Jesus says that where two or three are gathered in his name, he is in the midst of them (Matthew 18:20), and the Acts of the Apostles says that the first believers continued “in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers” (Acts 2:42).
Because the word is used in both ways, it matters which one a person means. Someone may leave a local church, with good or bad reason, and still believe in the whole church. Someone else may attend a local church and not believe in the church at all.
Step 3: How the traditions describe the church
Catholic teaching, set out in the Second Vatican Council’s constitution Lumen Gentium, describes the church as a people, a body and a kind of sacrament of union with God. It teaches that the church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church, governed by the pope and the bishops in communion with him, while recognizing real elements of the church in other Christian communities. Orthodox teaching stresses the church as a communion centered on the Eucharist, celebrated by a bishop, with each local church that is in the apostolic faith being fully the church. Orthodox writers also insist that the church is the body of Christ in a real, not just symbolic, sense.
Most Protestants, following Luther and Calvin, speak of the church as the people called by the Word of God. Calvin distinguished the invisible church, known to God alone, from the visible church, in which the Word is preached and the sacraments are administered. The Westminster Confession of 1646 uses the same distinction (chapter 25). Baptists and other free-church traditions place greater weight on a gathered community of believers who have made a profession of faith. These accounts differ in important ways. What they share is that the church is not self-made.
Step 4: Early Christian voices
Ignatius of Antioch, writing in the early second century, urges Christians to gather around their bishop and to share one Eucharist, one prayer and one hope. Cyprian of Carthage in the third century wrote that one cannot have God as a Father who does not have the church as a mother. These sentences have been used in different ways: Catholic and Orthodox writers read them as describing the visible, ordered church, while many Protestants read them as teaching the value of the church without limiting it to one institution. All of these writers assume that a Christian belongs to a community.
Step 5: Apply the idea honestly
If the church is the body of Christ, then isolation from other believers is a serious matter, and the question to ask is not whether it is allowed but how a person in fact belongs. There are many answers across the traditions, from regular worship and sacraments to letter-writing, spiritual direction and prayer for others. A person may also have been wounded by a church and need time and care. The body language is not a way to shame people. It is a way to ask whether one is living as a member.
- In what concrete ways am I a member of the body of Christ?
- Whom do I need, and who needs me?
- Do I use the word church for a building, a gathering, a tradition or a body?
- What wound or objection keeps me from a local church, and have I named it honestly?
- What would it mean to pray for the whole church this week?
- If I belong to the church, what do I owe to it, and what does it owe to me?
Examples
A member who rarely gathers
A man who lives far from any church believes in the church as the body of Christ, prays for it daily, writes to a pastor and attends a service at Christmas and Easter. He might say he belongs to the church in a thin way and wants to belong more fully. (A constructed example.)
An attender who does not belong
A woman attends every Sunday but speaks to no one and offers no help. She says she has no need of the congregation. She is present in body, but the New Testament image of mutual need is missing. (A constructed example.)
A wounded believer
A person who was abused by a church leader has stopped attending. She still prays, reads Scripture and talks with a counselor and one friend from her old church. Her situation calls for patience and care, and not for lectures. (A constructed example.)
Different perspectives
Catholic
The church is the body of Christ, visible and spiritual at once, with a hierarchy of pope, bishops and priests and sacraments through which Christ acts. The Catholic Church teaches that those baptized in other communions are brought into some real communion with it, though not full communion.
Orthodox
The church is the body of Christ, most fully realized when the bishop and people gather for the Divine Liturgy and receive the Eucharist. Orthodox teaching holds that the Orthodox Church is the one church founded by Christ, while many Orthodox writers speak with care about those outside it.
Protestant
The church is the body of Christ, made up of all who trust in him. Lutheran and Reformed churches identify the true church by the preaching of the Word and the right use of the sacraments. Other Protestants emphasize the believers’ gathering. Many speak of an invisible church known to God alone in addition to visible churches.
Scholarly
New Testament scholars debate how much organization the earliest churches had, and how soon offices such as bishop and elder took fixed shape. Most agree that the earliest believers gathered regularly in households and that belonging to a community was assumed.
Why it matters
A person who studies alone needs to decide whether the church is optional or constitutive. The answer shapes the rest of the course. This lesson does not push a conclusion about attendance. It shows that the Bible and all three traditions treat belonging as a basic part of being a Christian, and invites careful thought about how that belonging is lived.
Common misunderstandings
Misunderstanding: The church is just a building or an organization.
Correction: All three traditions teach that the church is the community of people joined to Christ. Buildings and organizations serve it but are not it.
Misunderstanding: Belonging to the invisible church means I need no visible church.
Correction: Calvin, who used the distinction, insisted that believers should join the visible church and warned against separating from it without cause.
Misunderstanding: Catholic means Roman Catholic only.
Correction: In the creed, catholic means universal. Catholics, Orthodox and many Protestants confess it, each understanding it in their own way.
Misunderstanding: Being in the body of Christ is a private feeling.
Correction: The New Testament pictures it as a shared life with real obligations toward others.
Knowledge check
What does Paul mean when he writes that the eye cannot say to the hand that it has no need of it?
He means that members of the church are mutually dependent. No gift or person is self-sufficient, and no member can say that others are unnecessary. It is a direct challenge to any idea of faith as wholly private.
What is the difference between the visible and the invisible church?
The visible church is the outward, gathered community with its worship and ministry. The invisible church is the whole number of those who truly belong to God, known to God alone. Protestants developed the distinction, and Augustine’s writings are an important source.
How do the Orthodox describe the church’s center?
They describe the church as a eucharistic communion, most fully present when the bishop and people gather around the Eucharist. Each local church in the apostolic faith is fully the church.
Why can attendance not be the whole test of belonging?
Because belonging in the New Testament includes mutual love, sharing, service and a common faith. A person may be present without belonging in that sense, and someone prevented from attending may still belong in prayer, love and faith.
Think it through
- How would you describe your own relation to the church as a whole, and to a local church?
- What does the idea that you are a member of a body, not an independent person, ask of you?
- Which tradition’s description of the church is closest to your own thinking, and which challenges you most?
- If you were prevented from attending any gathering for a year, how would you remain a member?
Independent assignment
What I mean by church
In your own notebook, write 300 to 450 words. Read 1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4:1-16. State in your own words what Paul means by the body of Christ. Then describe your present relation to the church, using the terms local church and whole church. Finish with one concrete way, large or small, in which you could live more as a member this month.
Further study
- Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Ephesians Read for an early picture of the church gathered around its bishop.
- Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church) Read chapters 1 and 2 for the Catholic account of the church as a mystery and a people.
- John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion Read Book 4, chapters 1 and 2, on the visible and invisible church.
- Timothy (Kallistos) Ware, The Orthodox Church Look for the chapters on the church and the liturgy.
- 1 Corinthians 12:27 You are the body of Christ.
- Ephesians 4:4 One body and one Spirit.
- Colossians 1:18 Christ is the head of the body.
- Romans 12:5 Members one of another.