A few Sunday’s ago,my pastor noted in his sermon that Christ is the King of the universe, that He is sovereign over all creation, including the church. Christ’s authority and rights as King of the Church should be obvious and evident to us, but they often are not. Many of us have used phrases such as “my church” or “our church” when discussing the church we attend. In doing so we are correctly and simply identifying ourselves with a particular body of believers. Or are we? Could it be, even subconsciously, that in using such phrases we are claiming ownership of the church? Is it “my church” from a sense of belonging or from a sense of controlling interest?

Several months ago I had dinner with some friends from my seminary class. Most of our time together was spent bragging about the things God is doing in our respective churches and in our families. In some ways we all spoke with a sense of pride about what “our churches” are doing to minister for Christ. At the end of the evening however, we parted company with a renewed sense of the power of God at work in the church. We were filled with a deep sense of awe by the many and various ways in which Christ uses HIS CHURCH. 

 We speak of “our church” or “my church,” but in doing so, let us not forget that the church belongs to no one except Christ. The church was created by and given its missional direction by Christ (Matthew 16:18). It was Christ who “instituted the means of grace which the church must administer, namely, the Word and the sacraments” (Mt 28:19, 20; Mk 16:15, 16; Lk 22:17-20; 1 Cor 11:23-29). It is Christ who gives church officers authority to “speak and act in His name” (Mt 10:1; 16:19; Jn 20:21-23; Eph 4:11, 12).  It is Christ who “is ever present in the Church when [the church] meets for worship” (Mt10:40, 2 Cor 13:3) and performs His mission in the world.^[1]

 ”The church has no life apart from Christ and receives from Christ whatever life it has [and] cannot continue to exist for even a moment apart from Him.”^[2] Christ is the church’s “founder and its foundation, its savior and its owner, its preserver and its hope, its lover and its beloved, its righteousness and its holiness, its Head and its King.”^[3]

 Who runs this place? Christ and Christ alone! Our church belongs to Christ and it is His to rule (run) because He is King. Are we letting Him do so? ^[5]

 ^[1]  Louis Berkhoff, Systematic Theology, 1938, Combined 1996 Edition, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, MI, page 582.

^[2]  R. B. Kuiper, The Glorious Body of Christ – A Scriptural Appreciation of the One Holy Church, 2006 Banner of Truth edition, page 94.

^[3]  Ibid, page 91.

^[4]  If Christ is in fact King of the Universe, then He is King over all. Are you allowing Him to be King in your life?

“To all outward appearances,” writes R. B. Kuiper, “the church frequently presents a picture of dissension rather than harmony. Nor are such appearances altogether deceiving. As a matter of plain fact, there is at all times considerable disharmony within the visible church.” Kuiper blames much of this disharmony on individuals who indulge “in the twin sins of pride and jealousy,” along with a corporate failure to maintain proper church discipline. He goes on to say that disharmony also comes from an individual and corporate failure to remember that the Head of the church is Christ.[1]

While it may seem that disharmony is the “fourth mark” of the church, the truth is that the church is to be known for

Calvin and Luther believed that where the Word of God is rightly preached and the Sacraments rightly administered, church discipline will naturally follow. Later reformers would argue that church discipline is so vital to the well being of the Church that it is in fact the third mark of a true church. Scripture clearly mandates that the church proactively and reactively administer discipline to the members of the church body. Contrary to popular thinking, church discipline is not punishment. The primary goal of church discipline is

The Attributes of the Church^[1] were found by the Reformers to be insufficient to answer two key questions of the Reformation: “How can we recognize a true church? Is the Roman Catholic Church a true church or not?”^[2] The Reformers argued that the Roman Church was not a true church despite their claims of unity, holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity. Unlike the Roman Church of the 16th century, the Reformers recognized and accepted that Scripture makes clear that despite God’s promise to protect and maintain the Church, it is possible that “the Church may become subject to error, may depart from the truth, and may totally degenerate.”^[3] The Reformers argued that this is in fact what had happened to the Roman Church, errors leading to total degeneration.^[4] Although the attributes are certainly present in any true church, for Luther and Calvin the true church could not be fully defined by the four attributes, for in their eyes even false churches and other organizations were claiming them.

What was required were

 

“The church is at once a very familiar and a very misunderstood topic… [This] misunderstanding results from the multiple usages of the term church” on one level and on “a more profound level – a lack of understanding of the basic nature of the church.”[1] Both the Old and New Testaments use words which when translated variously describe the church to be:

 

¨         Individuals or groups called together by God, for His purpose.[2]

¨         The location or structure where those who are called together actually meet.[3]

¨         Multiple, independent groups meeting in places such as a town or a region.[4]

¨         All of the individuals, throughout the whole world, including those living, dead, and yet to be born, who God has called to salvation through Christ Jesus.[5]

 

What is common to each of these ideas for the word church is the concept