The Adventures of the Early Church . . .

IMAGES OF THE ECCLESIA

Speech is the image of our actions. — Solon

That pungent line, spoken by one of the wise men of Athens in seventh century B.C., captures an important truth about the early church of Jesus Christ: the vision it had of itself is reflected in the images it used in describing itself. We can also say that the images of the church as set forth in Scripture disclose the mind of God as to what he called the ecclesia to be. Clearly, God has all along revealed himself in images for there is really no other way, the greatest of all images being Jesus Christ himself, who is referred to as “the image of the invisible God.” God also reveals himself as Creator, Judge, and Father, as well as such imagery as “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear” (Is. 59:1).

Solon’s wisdom is realized in our own age. Psychologists wisely refer to the importance of one’s “self image” and how that image often needs upgrading, even if the approach is usually secularistic. Psychologists and psychiatrists rarely think in terms of one being born again, and that a real “image” change comes when there is a change within and from above.

At a more simplistic level the advertising media are image makers. A soft drink ad invites you to “Be a Pepper,” while another assures you that “Things go Better with Coke.” Millions have gone into creating the image of “the Marlboro man,” and while they deny it, the tobacco industry is seeking to entice young people with that image.

Political images are especially interesting. Russia is likened unto a bear while the United States is an eagle, an image that President Eisenhower did not like since the eagle is a predator. Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey as the American emblem, but who wants to be a turkey? Word images like democracy and republic are meaningful, and I agree with President Kennedy that the United States should think of herself as a republic rather than a democracy. Politicians themselves create images. If President Reagan is “the great communicator,” the prime minister of Britain is “the iron lady.”

Images! They are the stuff of life. Poets have spoken of lost lives and shattered dreams in terms of broken images, as did T. S. Eliot in The Waste Land.

You know only a heap of broken images, where the sun beats,

And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,

And the dry stone no sound of water.

In their image of themselves the early Christians had no such concepts as are often current in modern theology, such as the “visible church” and the “invisible church,” or even “the church militant” and “the church triumphant.” In the New Testament there is no invisible church, which makes the visible church meaningless. There was the ecclesia, God’s community, in all its flesh and blood reality — real people who could be sought out and persecuted. They did not see themselves as being invisible in any sense.

Nor is there the church triumphant in the New Testament, even though we do have the ecclesia described as the city of God in Revelation. It is always the church militant — the pilgrim church, the witnessing church, the praying church, the persecuted church. Even the saints that have gone on are not as much “triumphant” as they are still a part of the struggle against evil upon the earth, as in Rev. 6:10 where the martyrs for Christ are heard to cry out, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before thou wilt judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell upon the earth?

They did not even distinguish between the local ecclesia and the church universal. While Paul would clearly refer to the church in general in some contexts, as in 1 Cor. 12:28: “God has appointed in the church first apostles,” and to a single congregation in others, as in 1 Cor. 1:2: “To the church of God which is at Corinth,” there was no practical distinction. No congregation saw itself as but a part of the universal church. They rather saw the local ecclesia as the (universal) church in a given community, and I use parenthesis because they simply did not think in terms of universal and local. There was simply God’s community, whether in many places or one place. The church at Corinth (not the Corinthian church!) was the ecclesia of God in its completeness. In Corinth “the temple of God” that was filled with God’s Spirit and assembled in the name of Christ represented the (universal) church in that city. They were the Body of Christ in assembly, not just part of that Body.

The multiplicity of images used by the early believers goes far in revealing the nature of the church. We have already referred to such images as community, Body, temple, and the list is almost endless. In various ways the ecclesia is likened unto a family or household (even a spiritual house in 1 Pet. 2:5), an elect race, a holy nation, and a royal priesthood (l Pet. 2:5, 9). It is also likened to a pilgrim community (l Pet. 2: II), a colony of heaven (Philip. 3:20, a peculiar or possessed people (Tit. 2:14), and as the people of God (l Pet. 2:10).

There is the image of the vine and the branches (In. 15:1-8), the assembly of first-born ones (Heb. 12:23), the olive tree (Rom. 11:17), and even as the seed of Abraham (Gal. 3:29). Some think the ecclesia is called “the Israel of God” in Gal. 6:19, but I doubt if the Scriptures ever equate the church with Israel. In that verse the apostle could be greeting both believers in Christ and his fellow Jews. But Jas. 1:1 does refer to believers who really “belong to Israel.”

So, many of the images are drawn from the Old Testament. Even the Greek term ecclesia was first used of the church of Moses in the wilderness (Acts 7:38). There was the tabernacle in the wilderness but the church is the true tabernacle (Heb. 8:2), just as it is God’s temple in a more important sense than was the temple in the Old Testament (1 Cor. 3:16). Moreover, the ecclesia is the Messianic community, founded not by man’s initiative but by the redemptive act of God.

There are at least four propositions that can be drawn from these images, and these point to the true nature of the church. These are marks of the true church, wherever that church may be all around the world.

1. The ecclesia is one and can never be divided.

Take the images one by one and they all point to the essential unity of the church. While the images may all reflect variety and diversity, oneness is an incontrovertible characteristic. “There are many members,” Paul advises, “but only one Body.” So with all the images. There are many branches, but only one vine. There are many “living” stones and of various shapes, but they are built into but one house.

This is why we cannot really speak of a divided church. If Christ cannot be divided, then his Body cannot be splintered into sects. So the apostle argues. Sects therefore cannot be the church, though the church (believers) may be scattered among the sects. But still the ecclesia is one, made up of all who are in Christ. The church’s unity is real, though not yet realized.

2. The ecclesia is called of God to be saints and is therefore holy.

The images abundantly reflect that “the church might be presented before him in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:27). So the church is God’s shekinah that first dwelt in the tabernacle and the temple. God’s church is God’s dwelling place upon earth. In seeing themselves as God’s temple, the early believers saw themselves as called to holiness. (1 Cor. 3:16-17 presents the most exciting image of all: “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and that temple you are.” And that was said to a very imperfect assembly of believers.

The church is not only called to be holy but it is holy. Anyone who seeks to destroy God’s purpose in creating a holy people is in danger of being destroyed. The image of believers as priests in God’s temple will help us recover the reality of holiness. Heb. 12:14 says without such holiness no one will see the Lord. That must be what Rom 8:9 is saying: “Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.” These passages show the relationship between holiness, which is necessary for fellowship with God, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

3. The ecclesia is catholic or universal.

The book of Revelation is rich in imagery of the church, and the universality of the church is especially stressed. The true church roll is inscribed in “the book of life” (Rev. 3:5), the victorious ones shall eat of “the tree of life which is in the paradise of God” (Rev. 2:7), they will receive “the crown of life” (Rev. 2:9) and they will be given a white stone with a new name written on it (Rev. 2:17), and they will be made pillars in the temple of God (Rev. 3:12). These are transcending images in that they reach beyond time, place, age, race, and nationality. The images make it clear that whoever wills may be a pillar, wear a crown, and eat of the tree of life.

The catholicity of the ecclesia comes through loud and clear in Rev. 7. John first sees the sealing of the 144,000 from the twelve tribes of Israel, but then he sees “a great multitude” which could not be numbered. They were from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues. The book ends with an invitation from the catholic ecclesia: “The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come.’ And let him who hears say, ‘Come.’ And let him who is thirsty come, let him who desires take the water of life without price” (Rev. 22:17).

There is God’s grace overflowing the book of Revelation, and how gracious those words Let him who desires take the water of life without price. The invitation is color blind. It embraces all nations and all peoples.

Catholicity also implies equality. Not only may all come but they may all come on equal basis. And they have an equal relationship. The image of believers as “living stones” in 2 Pet. 2:5 points this up, for while the stones that make up the spiritual structure are of various shapes and forms they are all equal. An Illinois paper carried this announcement: “Normal boy marries Oblong girl.” Stones are like that, with some square-like and some oblong and some triangular. Most may be “normal,” but many are roughly-hued and a few finely cut and highly polished. But all are equal. Thank God that he did not make us bricks, all formed and stamped exactly alike! Universality always implies diversity.

4. The ecclesia is apostolic.

Some of the images point to the fact that the ecclesia grew out of biblical tradition. The church was both the creation and the creator of Scripture. She was the creation of the Old Testament and the creator of the New. This is why we have a problem with making the church after a presumed New Testament pattern. The ecclesia was created by the Holy Spirit in the hearts of men, and that community of believers over many decades produced the New Testament. But still her foundation is in the apostles and apostolic authority. This must be the meaning of “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone” in Eph. 2:19.

This means the church is founded upon the preaching of the gospel as first proclaimed by the apostles, and that her life and teaching is centered in the Scriptures given to us by the apostles and prophets. This is why we need no modern prophets and apostles in the superstructure, for the foundation has been laid once and for all. There is only one reason for modern apostles: so there might be modern revelations, crafted to fit a particular cult or sect. To say that the church is apostolic is to say it is founded upon the message of Scripture, and we need no more Bibles or additions to it.

These propositions get at the heart of the nature of the church, and they reflect the way the early Christians saw themselves. By the fourth century at the Council of Nicea the church framed a creedal statement: We believe in the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church, which reflects these principles. It is remarkable that the church came to the place in its then rather long history that it could capture the essence of its own being in one, short pregnant line.

It is crucial that we recover for the modern church this vital self-concept. We are united already, oneness being God’s gift to the Body of Christ. We will therefore repudiate any divisiveness that would impose itself upon that oneness. We must again see ourselves as God’s holy temple, his dwelling place in this world, a “spiritual house” made so by the presence of the Holy Guest of heaven. Just so we must be intolerable of a “black church” or “white church,” or “Southern” or “Northern,” or oriental or occidental. If we think in terms of the church catholic we will not think primarily in terms of Texas or Tennessee, or Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Nashville, or Abilene.

Nor do we have to concern ourselves with the claims of cultic leaders or electric evangelists who have foundations of their own and who hear the voice of God as well as the apostles. We know that if any one builds a foundation other than that of the chosen Twelve, with Jesus Christ as the cornerstone, he builds in vain. Such cults and prophets have their day and pass on.

This is why we must be “people of the Book” with a greater sense of responsibility in interpreting and teaching the Scriptures. We can say in our day with a renewed devotion and urgency, We believe in the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.

“God’s firm foundation stands, bearing this seal: ‘The Lord knows those who are his.’” (2 Tim. 2:19). That is image-making enough for the church in any generation: the ecclesia is God’s firm foundation and while we may not, he always knows who and where that church is. —the Editor