Chapter Five — The Church Is Holy
The Nicene Creed states, "I believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church." We turn now to the attribute of holiness as it relates to the church. It's been said in times past that the church is the most corrupt insti tution in the world. Now that may seem something of an overstatement and an exaggeration, but it can be true depending on how we evaluate corruption. In the first instance, if we simply look at naked evil, then obviously things like organized crime or neo-Nazis may be deemed
What Is the Church?
to be far more corrupt than the church. But if we look at goodness and evil in terms of the sliding scale of moral responsibility, then yes, the church is the most corrupt of institutions. Jesus said, "Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required" (Luke 12:48). If we applied that standard to the church, then we would say that the church, of all institutions, is the institution that has received the most benefits from divine grace. In light of the manifold benefits and endowments of grace that we have received as the church and the corresponding high level of responsibility attending that, we could say, rela tively speaking, that the church is corrupt insofar as we fail to measure up to the responsibility of our calling.
It seems to some people almost humorous that in the New Testament, Paul frequently addressed believers as "saints." For example, he addressed his epistles to the saints who are in Corinth or the saints who are in Ephesus. The word that is translated saints is the word hagioi, which means holy ones. The Holy Spirit is called holy with this same Greek word.
In what sense are members of the body of Christ to be called saints or holy ones—the hagioi? We have to look at the various ways in which people may legitimately be
The Church Is Holy called holy. It begins by understanding the church's voca tion. A vocation, of course, is a calling. This word has almost disappeared from our common vocabulary. People today speak of their jobs and of their careers, but it used to be that we all understood that we had a vocation. A voca tion meant a call from God to be engaged in a particular enterprise. One would consider their calling to be a sur geon or a farmer or a housewife as a responsibility that has been given to them according to their gifts by God.
The whole idea of vocation is built into the biblical word for church. In the New Testament, the Greek word that is used to translate the word church is ekklesia. We get the word ecclesiastical from that Greek term. If we look at this word and break it down, we see that ekklesia contains a prefix and a root. You don't have to be a student of Greek to be able to understand this, because the prefix, ek, comes from ex, which means "from" or "out of." In addition, the primary root of this word comes from the Greek word kaleō, which means "to call." It's very close to our own English word call. If we look at the root meaning of the term ekklesia in the Scriptures, we see that etymologically, it means something that is called out of something else.
What Is the Church?
The reason the church is called the ekklesia is that the church is the company of people who have been called out of the world by God. After Jesus was born, there was an attempt by Herod to kill the infants and to destroy this newborn king. The angel of the Lord warned Joseph in a dream to flee the land, and they went down to Egypt. After Herod died, it was revealed to Joseph that it was safe to return to Palestine and thus we are told that the Scriptures were fulfilled: "Out of Egypt, have I called my son" (Matt. 2:15), referring to a latter day, ultimate fulfill ment of what God did originally with the Exodus. There He called Israel out of bondage in Egypt and adopted the nation of Israel as His son. In a real sense, this voca tion of the church begins with this call of God, where He redeemed a nation out of slavery in Egypt. But it goes even deeper than that. The Christian and the church, both Israel in the Old Testament and the church in the New Testament, were not merely called by God out of Egypt but they were called out of the world. Not that they were to leave the planet, but this calling was a calling to holi ness. We remember that when God formed Israel, He said to them: "For I am the Lord your God. Consecrate your selves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy" (Lev. 11:44).
The Church Is Holy
Long before Paul wrote epistles to the saints—the holy ones—at Ephesus, Corinth, or Thessalonica, the idea that the church was a people that had been called out into holi ness by God was already deeply and firmly established in the Old Testament.
The very word holy means to be different or to be set apart. When one is set apart, the person is set apart from that which is ordinary or common and directed to some thing extraordinary, something uncommon. Of course, in biblical categories, that meant that the people of Israel who were called to holiness were called to live according to a different pattern, standard, or manner of living from that which was commonplace in the world. In other words, this was a call to godliness, to a different way of living.
The first thing that we have to understand when we look at the statement the church is holy is that the church has a holy vocation, a holy calling. The church has been set apart from every other institution and the people of God have been set apart from the world for a specific mission. They are to mirror and reflect the character of God. This means that if we are part of the invisible church, we are called to be a pilgrim people. That's why the Bible emphasizes that we are sojourners, pilgrims, and aliens in this world.
What Is the Church?
In addition to this, there's another sense in which the church is called holy. The church is called holy because its members are to be people who have been indwelt by God the Holy Spirit. Everyone who is indwelt by the Holy Spirit is considered holy or set apart in the eyes of God. The church is the institution that God has created visibly wherein He has been pleased to have His Spirit dwell. Keep in mind that the Holy Spirit is not the only spirit that we find in the midst of the visible church. We find evil spir its and we have to test the spirits. But the church is holy insofar as the Holy Spirit is present and functioning in the lives of the people who are there. That's why Paul can look at sinners and address them as saints. In and of themselves they're still sinners but if they have been regenerated by the Holy Spirit, born of the Spirit, and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, they are now the hagioi, the "holy ones," those who are in the process of being sanctified.
In response to this, we hear people say that the church is not holy but rather is filled with hypocrites. The reply to that should be, "There's always room for one more." None of us in the church are ever able to live out perfectly the very things that we profess to believe. The believers
The Church Is Holy who are called saints are a fellowship of sinners who are in the process of being sanctified. We are the workmanship of Christ. Christ is molding us and He is molding His church. He is shaping it unto holiness. Just as individuals will not be perfectly sanctified until heaven, so the church will not be perfectly sanctified until the church has been glorified.
We've seen that the Bible refers to the church as "the bride of Christ." One day we will see this bride in her immaculate and breathtaking bridal gown. But right now, the bride's gown is marred. It has blemishes, spots, and wrinkles. But the pledge of Christ to His bride is that He is going to remove every spot, every blemish, and every wrinkle so that in the last day He will present His bride to the Father in the full splendor of perfect holiness.
Right now we are a bride whose dress is wrinkled and spotted. Imagine a bride showing up for a wedding in her wedding gown and you're thinking, "My goodness, she must have had that thing thrown in the corner for the last six months; it's full of wrinkles." No bride would appear like that at her wedding. If we look at the state we're in now, we have nothing of which to boast. Our holiness is
What Is the Church?
in progress, and it is absolutely certain in terms of the des tiny of the true church. That doesn't mean that churches as visible institutions won't perish or that churches can't become apostate. They can, but we're talking now about the invisible church. This is the church that is made up of true believers. At some point in history, this church will demonstrate the fullness of her holiness and be faithful to her vocation as she is constantly enabled and purified by the Holy Spirit who indwells her. This is one of the reasons why the church is subjected to great persecutions and to times of great suffering. In that suffering comes the cleans ing of the crucible. This is one of the means that God uses to effect sanctification and the purity of the church. From time to time, God is pleased to awaken His people, and we seem always to be in need of awakening to our vocation and calling as the people of God that we might be holy even as He is holy.
Ask yourself the question, "Is my church a holy place?" You may laugh when I ask that because you may be able to point out all the flaws, errors, and sin that invades the church. Remember, the church is still polluted, but it's also the bride of Christ. Holiness is not so much what the church is at any given moment in her history, but what she
The Church Is Holy will be. Our purpose in the present is to be a saint who is being sanctified. In addition, we are to be those who rely upon the gifts and the graces of the Holy Spirit to be faith ful to the vocation God has given to the church.