What is the Church? And what is the future plan of God for the Church? In what programs of God the church will be included? In order to know the answers to these questions it is important to study what the Lord Jesus Christ said about the church while He was in this earth during His public ministry. We read in Matthew 16:18 when Jesus said, “I will build my church.” This is to say that the program of God for the church is still in the future when He says this word. It implies that the Lord Jesus Christ sees the different plan of God for Israel and the church. God has a special purpose for Israel and the church as well, but the plan of God to both groups of people is not the same. Israel already exists for many years but the church (local church) does not exist during the ministry of Jesus in His first coming. John the Baptist also indicates about the plan of God for the church in John 3:29-30 that the church is not only in the future but he himself does not have opportunity to belong to it. As he says, “He that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease.” The friend of the bridegroom is different from the bride because the bride is the church. So the question is when is the beginning of the church? After the ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ, His disciples based on the great commission that they received, went out to preach the gospel not only in Jerusalem but also in Judea and Samaria which we can see as the beginning of the church.
2. According to the apostle Paul
Paul tells us in Ephesians 3:5-6 that the church is the brand new thing which is never known before. Paul says, “Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.” What is that hidden in the past but now revealed? It is “That the Gentiles should be fellow heirs and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel.”
Before the Pentecost, the believers were in two groups namely the Jews and Gentiles. The Gentiles should become the Jews in some extents to be fully involved in the program of God. But Paul said in this passage that now the mystery is the new arrangement in the plan of God. The Gentiles do not need to become Jews in order to be acceptable before the Lord because in the body of Christ there is no Jew and Gentile. This mystery was revealed and begun in the day of Pentecost as the Lord Jesus Christ says that few days after he left to heaven, the Holy Spirit of God would baptise them who trust in Him namely the bride of Christ, the true church of Jesus Christ. The proof of this promise was fulfilled in the day of Pentecost. God is calling people to this new organism, the church to Himself and when it is complete; there will be rapture of the church. Now Jesus is preparing for the time of the rapture that every believer will meet Him face to face in the air. This will be the end of God’s program for the church on this earth.
In the study of the plan of God for the church, we are not only to know when the church is begun in God’s program, but we need to understand who will belong to this church. The church is not only the small percentage Christians on this earth but every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ from generation to generation. They are the sanctified people in the Lord because in Hebrew 10:10 said that we who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ are sanctified by the blood of Christ, once for all. In Philippians 1:6 Paul says, “Being confident of this very thing that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform until the day of Jesus Christ.” Every Christian the moment he is born again he is sanctified by God and he is in this earth in the process of sanctification day by day. His sinful nature will be banished away and he is called a saint. However we need to understand clearly that the idea of saint that we are talking about is totally different to what the world offers to man. Many people have said that only those who have done great things to people and to the church are worthy to be called the saints. What they have said is absolutely a contradiction to what the Word of God says. Every born again Christian in the New Testament is worthy to be called a saint. In 1 Corinthins 1:2-3 we read what Paul says to the Christians in the church of Corinth. “Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Chris Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours. Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.”
a. The Sanctified people is the Saint
What do we have to do to be a saint? What do we have to do to be sanctified by the blood of Jesus Christ? The only answer to these questions is we must believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Apart from believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, there is nothing that the Christians need to do to be sanctified. It is all settled the moment we believe in Him. God is taking care of this matter but the process of sanctification is begun at the moment we are saved, up to the time of the rapture. In this process, the Holy Spirit is used by God to sanctify us through the written Word of God. However it is sad to know that many Christians set aside the Scripture and focus on the matter of dreams, visions and speaking in tongues, and ever experiencing and some other things.
In John 17:17 Jesus prayed saying “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.” The Word of God is the instrument sanctifying God’s people. As Paul said in 2 Corinthians 3:18 “ We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” We need to come to the Word of God to reveal ourselves clearly. Thus in the process of sanctification, the Word of God does two things for us, Christians. Firstly, it shows that we are not in the light of other people but in the light of God. Secondly, it shows us how far we have fallen short from God’s standard of Christian living. Thus the Bible is the cleansing agent to remove the defilement of our sins as Ephesians 5:26 when Paul spoke of the washing of the water by the Word.
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