Nature and Work of the Church

Acts 2:41-47; Ephesians 4:11-16

GOLDEN TEXT: “Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it.”—Ephesians 5:25

THE MEAGER outline of the preaching by the Apostle Peter on the Day of Pentecost afforded us by the extracts reported from his discourse in the second chapter of Acts, indicate simplicity, wisdom, and courage, such as we should expect in those who are guided by the Holy Spirit. It is after this same sort that all the preaching of God’s true servants should he. It should be illuminating and not confusing. Error is never clear; it is always confused and confusing. Clearness and simplicity, on the contrary, are marks of the truth.

The simplicity of the Gospel always appeals to those who have a hearing ear. For various reasons however the old, old story which the apostle preached on the Day of Pentecost is considerably neglected in our day by professed ministers of the Gospel of Christ. One reason is that those who attempt to teach realize their own confusion of thought, and need first to be taught of God through His Word, and through such channels as the Holy Spirit may use in granting illumination of mind and appreciation of the Word. Today the vast majority seem to have itching ears for something new—a new gospel which may be of education, or of refinement, or of wealth, or possibly a more complex interpretation of the Bible than is warranted.

Peter’s sermon on the Day of Pentecost was spoken in the first instance to Jews. The apostle was fully justified therefore in telling his hearers that the promises of God were still theirs as a people; for it was clearly declared by the Lord, through the prophet, that Christ should be cut off in the midst of the seventieth symbolic week of Israel’s favor, leaving one-half of the seventieth week, namely three and one-half years, of special favor to Israelites individually, after their national favor had ceased.—Daniel 9:25-27; Matthew 23:37,38

As the apostle was addressing Jews, he admonished them to “be baptized for the remission of sins.” In Hebrews 9:22, we read that “Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins.” It must be therefore that when Peter spoke to the Jews about being baptized for the remission of sins, he was mentioning something that applied specially to them and something that would not do away with their need of the cleansing work of the blood of Christ.

This point becomes clear when we remember that the Jewish nation as a whole were blessed by God under the Law Covenant arrangements which included the blood of the typical sacrifices that typically justified and reconciled them. The sin which the apostle wished his hearers to emblematically wash away in baptism was not, therefore, original sin, but was sin against their Law Covenant—including their national sin in the rejection of the Messiah. With these purged away, with the symbolical washing, they would be back to the standpoint of true Israelites, and as such they would have every right and privilege belonging to the Israelites, but belonging to members of no other nation.

Evidently the Lord was guiding in respect to every feature of the establishment of the church, and it was on this account that so large a number as three thousand persons were prepared to accept the message—to accept Jesus as their Redeemer and King, and then to avow themselves His followers, His disciples. When we read that these were added to the church, it does not mean that they were added to a denomination, a party, a sect, but were additions to the one church, the body of Christ, members added to the one Head of the church.

We do not read that their names were enrolled as members of a nominal church, nor that they took certain vows, nor that they assented to certain confessions of faith. He who accepts Christ as His Redeemer and as His instructor, who pledges himself to obedience to Him, and to walk in His footsteps, has taken the only obligation the Scriptures define as marking those who are probationary members of the true church.

And it is still proper to make an outward acknowledgement or sign of this acceptance of Christ by a symbolic baptism. The real baptism, the real consecration of the heart, or will, its burial into Christ, takes place first, however, and the water immersion is but a symbol of that which has already occurred in the heart of the believer. In the case of Gentile believers this immersion in water does not carry the thought of remission of sin, but is merely a symbol of our baptism into Christ’s death.

After the final three and one-half years of special favor to the Jew ended, then the Gospel message was permitted to go to the Gentiles. The first Gentile convert was Cornelius, and the Apostle Peter was the one used by the Lord in giving him the message, even as he was used on the Day of Pentecost to present the Gospel of Christ to the Jews there assembled. Neither at Pentecost when the Message was presented to the Jews, nor later when it was presented to the Gentiles, was it God’s purpose to in this manner convert the world. The purpose of preaching the Gospel in this age is that of the selection and preparation of the body members of Christ, the church.

The Jews as a nation rejected their Messiah, hence the majority of them lost their opportunity of becoming joint-heirs with the Messiah in His long-promised Kingdom. In the eleventh chapter of Romans the apostle explains this, saying that they as natural branches in the olive tree were broken off because of unbelief. In the place of these natural branches thus separated from the special favor of God with respect to joint-heirship in the Kingdom, Gentile branches have been grafted in. These Gentile branches have been brought into the true church of Christ upon the basis of their acceptance of the Gospel and their consecration to do God’s will.

In the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, chapters 2 and 3 particularly, he points out that the Gentiles who were at one time aliens and strangers to the commonwealth of Israel, had now been brought nigh by the blood of Christ, and that these together with the Israelitish believers constituted one family or household of God. Thus we find that the church is made up of both Jews and Gentiles who have all been made one in Christ Jesus.

It is particularly this oneness which the apostle admonishes the early church to remember in connection with their fellowship one with another. Endeavor, he says, to maintain the “unity of the spirit in the bonds of peace.” The unity of Jewish and Gentile converts in the one church is a unity of the spirit because it has been revealed through the Holy Spirit that this is God’s will for His people. The Lord wants His people to maintain a spirit of unity along other lines as well.

It is for the building up of this one true church of Christ that the Lord, as shown in the second part of our lesson, has given some apostles, some prophets, some pastors, some teachers, some evangelists. It is in order to accomplish this building up work in the church that all of the truly consecrated are admonished to help and to assist each other in attaining, not only a unity of the spirit, but also a unity of the faith. It is the wholesome influence of the truth, spoken in the spirit of true Christian love, that does build up all of the consecrated in the most holy faith, and prepares them for their future position with Christ in His Kingdom, when the Church Militant this side of the veil will become the Church Triumphant on the other side, and will live and reign with Christ a thousand years.

QUESTIONS:

What was one of the secrets of the power of Peter’s preaching on the Day of Pentecost?

Why did Peter admonish the Jews to be baptized for the remission of sins?

What is the purpose of preaching the Gospel in this age?

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