Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America

Pioneer Christian Monthly

Date - Feb. 1/55

Contributor - G. Vander Wolde

Title - I Will Build My Church

Topic - Church Growth

I WILL BUILD MY CHURCH Ephesians 2:21

Speaking to the Gentile Christians of his day in an effort to erase national and racial prejudice, the Apostle Paul seeks to convince the Gentile Christians that they now belong with the believing Jews to one Family of God. In this family of God, so to speak, we find parents, children, servants. Not all are of equal status or function, yet there is unity of life and purpose, because it is one body.

Every well-ordered family must have unity of life and purpose. There must be some rules and regulations that all accept. Perhaps these rules are not written down, but in the family group there must be a common way of life, an inner acceptance of certain principles, if the unity is to be preserved. No member must cause shame to the family by living contrary to its traditions. No member can wilfully strike against the welfare of the others, else the unity and well-being of the family life will be destroyed.

Thus the Apostle Paul compares the Household of God to such a family which finds its unity in its beliefs, its principles, its convictions of life. These beliefs, or revelations from God, he calls the foundation of the Household. Upon this basis the church (family) must be built as one unit. He finds the foundation in the Apostles and Prophets of which Jesus Christ is the Chief Cornerstone. Leave Jesus Christ out of this foundation and the whole structure crumbles - Christianity has lost its strength and disappears.

Assuming then that the revelation of God's grace in Jesus Christ is the unifying principle of the Household, we further ask: What people are to be united? where are they found? Paul found them among the Jews and Gentiles, people of altogether different backgrounds, yet to be made one. We must find them in all races and nations,

To promote the unity of this one household, Paul said that he would forget his own past traditions and separateness. He sought the future welfare and glory of his beloved Israel together with the believing Gentiles in Christ's church. This is undoubtedly also what Simeon had in mind when he said that the Child Jesus was given as a light to the Gentiles and the glory of the people Israel - both one people in one Light and one Glory.

Today we still sing wholeheartedly "The Light of the World is Jesus." But in his day already Paul was trying to show young Christians of various nations that they were dimming that light of Christ for others by their hatreds and national prejudices. And today, we ask, do Christians really find anything of this one body, of that unity of life with one another in Christ Jesus? Or do differences in conception and practice weigh so heavily upon us that we can not live in that spiritual unity which ought to be ours because we are joined together in the Lord? The Scriptures still say that all must be joined together unto a Holy Temple in the Lord.

And if we have lost the sense of that unity, perhaps we have also lost the meaning of that word Temple. Perhaps it makes us think too much of the earthly, material structures that we build. Men's minds have always tended to emphasize those earthly buildings. Think for instance of the magnificent buildings erected in 0. T. times by the various nations to their gods. Today we still find the huge, dusty remnants of them in the deserts of the world. The temple of Diana was one of the seven wonders of the world, and it was but one of many. Even Israel was gripped by this materialistic idea. Only for a while were they satisfied to have the unseen God as their leader, to have as token of His Presence the rather humble, God-appointed tabernacle.

It was in the time of Samuel that Israel wanted to be like the other nations, to have earthly splendor, to have a king. The Lord said to Samuel, "They have rejected me and I shall be no more king over them." Yet, because of their desire, he granted them an earthly, visible king. It was the second of these kings, David, who conceived in his heart to build a temple to the Lord at Jerusalem. To impress David with the awfulness of this task the Lord said that the heavens of heaven can not contain Him, and how could David build an earthly house that would speak adequately of the presence of God. In fact, David could not build it at all because he was a man of many wars and much shedding of blood.

Solomon, the son of David, a man of peace, was permitted to build the magnificent temple which long stood at Jerusalem. And it does not seem that either the kingship of men (who often oppressed or misled the people) nor that visible temple were always a blessing to Israel. For afterward Israel often went the way of other nations, laying more emphasis on the splendor of a court (with its taxes) or the beauty of a temple, than on the awful and majestic presence of the eternal God in their midst.

The Christian Church too is in danger of falling prey to the worship of "the visible". In the first difficult years of its history the Christian Church knew no magnificent buildings or cathedrals. But since then many such have been built. Think of the towering Roman cathedrals, of great Masonic Lodges, club buildings which they also dare to call temples. Even the regular Protestant churches are vying with each other for splendour of appearance with costly additions, song leaders, robed choirs paid out of the church treasuries. Are we certain that the Spiritual House of God - the living People of God is still a reality in the midst of all this visible splendour?

In the Babel of confusion and competition Paul still speaks to us of the real church, the great spiritual Body of Christ, unified in the Lord. His argument against materialistic conceptions was that God does not dwell in temples made with hands. He is the creator and redeemer of the world. Only if the church is truly the spiritual Body of Christ can God, Who is a Spirit, dwell therein. And we ought to search our hearts whether we still believe in this kind of church and whether by faith and through God's grace we are members of this one Body.

Jesus promised us "I will build My church." And Paul says that in Christ a structure of all nations and races is joined together and grows unto a Holy Temple in the Lord. Jews, Gentiles, people of all nations and tongues, all who believe in the everlasting Christ, are built by that Christ unto a dwelling place for God's Spirit. God give that our emphasis may not be first on the splendour of a congregation or the beauty of a building, but first on that beauty and strength which comes from being joined together in the Lord.

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