What is the visible church?

The visible church is a society made up of all such as in all ages and places of the world do profess the true religion,[1] and of their children.[2] 

1. I Cor. 1:2

   To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours…

     I Cor. 12:13 

   For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. Rom. 15:9-12

   Rev. 7:9

   After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands…

   Psa. 2:8

   Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,
   and the ends of the earth your possession.

   Psa. 22:27-31 

   All the ends of the earth shall remember
   and turn to the Lord,
   and all the families of the nations
   shall worship before you.
   For kingship belongs to the Lord,
   and he rules over the nations.

   All the prosperous of the earth eat and worship;
   before him shall bow all who go down to the dust,
   even the one who could not keep himself alive.
   Posterity shall serve him;
   it shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation;
   they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn,
   that he has done it.

   Psa. 45:17

   I will cause your name to be remembered in all generations;
   therefore nations will praise you forever and ever.

   Matt. 28:19-20

   Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in [1] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

   Isa. 59:21

   “And as for me, this is my covenant with them,” says the Lord: “My Spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouth of your offspring, or out of the mouth of your children’s offspring,” says the Lord, “from this time forth and forevermore.”

2. I Cor. 7:14

   For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.

   
   Acts 2:39

   For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.

   Rom. 11:16

   If the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, so is the whole lump, and if the root is holy, so are the branches.

   Gen. 17:7

   And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.

Question 62, Westminster Larger Catechism

Car Wash Blues

This weekend I did my spring cleaning of the car.  I sprayed off the winter’s accumulation of grime and the spring’s muddy splashes, and then spent the last couple of days admiring my sparkling vehicle.  

This morning when I went out to drive youngest son to school, here’s what I found:  A very large bird (or so I assume) had done his business down the driver’s door from top to bottom.  It was too late to take care of the problem before I left, so I had to take special care while driving, double checking before I pulled out into traffic just in case there was an approaching tractor-trailor hidden behind the dried bird business on my window.

Since this wasn’t really something I could take care of with a spray bottle of Windex and a paper towel, I stopped by the car wash on my way home.  It’s is a busy place this time of year, and I took my place in line to wait my turn.  Eventually, I made it to the front of the line, with a couple of cars waiting behind me.  Just as the bay in front of me emptied, a black BMW sedan whipped in from out of nowhere and squeezed himself in front of my car, taking his turn ahead of me and everyone else who had been waiting.  It was a maneuver as admirable for it’s slickness as it was deplorable for it’s rudeness.

 

I did nothing. Neither did the other waiting drivers. What do you do when someone’s that blatant in their disregard for waiting line etiquette? 

 

But there was an interesting buzz among the other drivers, as if we were instant friends as we washed our cars. I had a story to tell when I got home, and the doo is gone. Would I really want things any other way?

Purposes of Christ's Death: Ephesians 2:14-16

This is another reposting from a series of posts examining the statements of purpose that scripture gives us regarding the death of Christ.  You can find the other posts from this series by clicking on the purposes of Christ’s death label at the end of this post.

The text examined in this post is Ephesians 2:14-16:

For He Himself is our peace, who made both {groups into} one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, {which is} the Law of commandments {contained} in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, {thus} establishing peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity. (NASB)

The purpose statement here is “so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, {thus} establishing peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity.” In Christ’s death, God  intended to bring two hostile groups together and to reconcile them to each other and to himself.

I suppose the first thing we need to do is determine who are the two groups referrenced.  The context tells us that these are the Jewish people and the Gentiles.

Therefore remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called “Uncircumcision” by the so-called “Circumcision,” {which is} performed in the flesh by human hands— {remember} that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. (vs. 11-13)

The terms Gentiles, Uncircumcision, separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise, without God in the world, and formerly…far off all refer to those who were not part of the nation Israel—or the Jews, or the Circumcision.

The covenants (or the Law of commandments) served as a line of demarcation between the two groups, and was a source of enmity or hostility, because it excluded those who did not come under the umbrella of the nation Israel. Christ’s death, however, took away the hostility between the two groups by what the NASB calls “abolishing in His flesh the enmity, {which is} the Law of commandments {contained} in ordinances”.  The dividing effects of the law —the enmity—is nullified in Christ’s death, because the new covenant established in Christ’s blood includes all those of faith, both Jew and Gentile. There is no longer a demarcation line based on national allegiance.

In the new order brought into being in by the death of Christ, there is not longer hostility between the Jews and all other people, but the two groups can be joined together to make “one new man”. This one new man is a new kind of corporate entity made up of all those–from the Jews and from the Gentiles—who are in Christ. Joining both Jews and Gentiles as one corporate group united in Christ establishes peace between the two formerly hostile groups.

Through the cross both groups are also reconciled “in one body” to God. The meaning of in one body is a bit unclear. It could mean the same thing that is meant when is says that the two groups are made into one new man, or it could mean that they are both united together with Christ’s one body in His death. The context could be used to support either one of these options. Either way, the point is that the groups are reconciled to each other and also reconciled to God through Christ’s death on the cross.

A little side note on the term barrier of the dividing wall in verse 14: Many commentators take this to be an allusion to the wall separating the Gentiles from the inner courts of the temple in Jerusalem. However, Leon Morris,  in The Atonement: Its Meaning and Significance, says that “It would be too much to say that Paul is writing about this wall.” Whether this exclusionary wall is what Paul is referring to or not, that there was such a wall tells us something about the deep division between Jew and Gentile under the ordinances of the law.

One of the purposes of Christ’s death was to break down the division of hostility between the Jews and the Gentiles, to reconcile them to each other, gathering them into one unified entity, and to reconcile both Jew and Gentile together to God himself.