The Church Universal

by G. A. N. James

THE CHURCH is universal. This means it is open to all mankind. The Church is not for any particular nation, culture, or race. It is not confined within any Christian denominational or non-denominational group. It consists of people who accept God’s salvation through Jesus Christ from all nations, cultures, and tribes. In this way the Church is not to be equated to a so-called national church or a denominational church, or even a non-denominational church. But it includes Christian believers who may or may not belong to these national churches, denominational churches, and non-denominational churches.

It is important to notice the Church consists of people. It is a community of Christian people. The physical structure in which people meet to worship God is often wrongly referred to as a church. And people often speak about going to church. The truth is a local assembly of believers in Christ may be called a local church and the Church universal consists of local churches worldwide. A local church may gather in what may be called a church-building to worship God. But the building in which they gather is not a church. The members of the local church gather in the building. Moreover, the fact is not everyone who gathers in a church-building actually belongs to the Church universal since the Church universal consists only of people who are saved by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

Salvation

Salvation is the means by which people are delivered from sin and brought into the Church by the Holy Spirit. It is plain in the Bible that God has extended salvation to all mankind. Salvation is universal. Because of the fall of man into sin, every human being, rich or poor, old or young, educated or uneducated, noble or common, black or white, needs salvation. God offers salvation to the entire world. For instance, we read in John 3:16-17: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”

Therefore, salvation being universal, the Church, which consists of all who are saved by God’s grace, is also universal. The Church is the universal community of the saved in Christ. If you are saved you are a member of the Church universal.

In Christ

The Church began with and in Jesus Christ. Jesus introduced His intention to build the Church when Peter declared the revelation that Jesus was the Messiah or the Christ the anointed One and the Son of God. Jesus pointed out that this revelation came to Peter from the Father and it is upon this rock, the Christ, the Son of God, He would build the Church. In other words, Jesus would build the Church of people who have a personal revelation and knowledge of who He is, and a faith rooted and grounded in Him.

We read in Matthew 16:15-18: He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter answered and said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus answered and said to him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.

The Foundation and Head of the Church is Jesus Christ. Paul points out in Ephesians 2:19-22: “Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.” Moreover, to emphasize the truth of Jesus being the only foundation of the Church, Paul states in 1 Corinthians 3:11, “For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”

The Church emerged with the resurrected Saviour out of the tomb of His bitter suffering and death. God through the suffering and death of Christ on earth atoned for our sins making it possible that our old sinful nature could be judged, crucified and buried with Jesus Christ. It was on behalf of mankind that Jesus was crucified. But God raised Jesus from death. Then, through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the life and Spirit of Christ was made available to all who believe in and receive Jesus Christ that they may be one with Him in a newness of life. According to Romans 6:4, “we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”

So the emergence of the Church through the death and resurrection of Christ is profoundly related to our salvation and deliverance from sin and death to walk in the liberty of the Christ-life. All who believe in and receive Jesus Christ would now share in the Christ-life by being baptized into Christ to become members of the growing Body of Christ. Men and women from all tribes and nations, dead in sin and iniquity, may accept Jesus Christ and share in the new life He offers in His Body. This is the glorious wonder of this great salvation - to think that we sinful creatures of Adam’s fallen race can partake of the resurrection life of Christ and become members of the Body of Christ.

And so, the Church had its beginning in Jesus Christ. He was the individual Christ who became the the Christ, the many-member Body. Jesus died and rose again to become the Head of the Church which is His Body. The Bible tells us God “put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all” (Ephesians 1:22-23). We also read in Colossians 1:18: “And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.”

Like the Human Body

The Bible tells us the Church is like the human body, which has many parts but all the parts unite into one body. In fact, the Bible teaches that the Church is actually the Body of Christ with its many members being believers in Christ. We read in 1 Corinthians 12:12-13: “For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.” The Bible tells us plainly further in the chapter in 1 Corinthians 12:27, “Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually.”

One’s baptism or immersion into the Body of Christ by the Spirit takes place at conversion when one turns to God and receives Jesus Christ. This is confirmed by one’s baptism in water unto the Lord Jesus Christ. Everyone who accepts Jesus Christ, the Son of God, becomes a part of the Church and a member of the Body of Christ. Therefore, the Church is not like a religious organization, which one joins by some ritual initiation, or is born into by belonging to a certain family, tribe, nation, or culture. One becomes a part of the Body of Christ by believing Jesus to be the Christ, the Son of God, and by being born again of the Spirit to be God’s offspring in Christ.

This is a wonderful experience! It is a personal one too. It connects you individually to God Himself, and the life of Jesus Christ flows into you and becomes your life. We read in Romans 6:3-4: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.”

No Schism in the Body

The Church is an amazing institution. It is wonderful to think that a man or woman from any tribe or nation, from any status in society, high or low, rich or poor, educated or uneducated, can become a part of this Church and be united with other believers in Christ into one community of God’s people everywhere and throughout this Church age. This is the Church universal. All of us, who have accepted Jesus Christ, the Son of God, have been baptized or incorporated into this one Church, the Body of Christ. The truth of the oneness of the Church is a profound one.

It is important that all believers in Christ realize this truth and consider themselves members of one Church universal. There is one Church, just as there is one Christ, and one Body of Christ, into which all believers in Christ are baptized. Indeed, if you have accepted Jesus Christ as the Son of God, then you are a member of the one Church, which is the Body of Christ. According to the Scriptures, “Now you are Christ's Body, and individually members of it” (1 Corinthians 12:27).

Interestingly and contrary to the prevailing ideas of many, there is absolutely no schism in the real Church, the Body of Christ. This is not to ignore what appear to us to be visible divisions and even conflicts among Christian people today. But in spite of these appearances of schisms, the Bible’s declaration that the Church is one invokes our faith in the truth of the word of God. The Bible clearly teaches us God in His marvelous wisdom and grace situates and tempers each member in the Body of Christ to make sure there is unity. We read in 1 Corinthians 12:24-25, “God composed the body, having given greater honor to that part which lacks it, that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another.” Thus, we must conclude that the visible conflicts and divisions  we see among God’s people actually have no effect on the fundamental oneness and unity of the true Church, the Body of Christ, which, according to the Bible, God composes to be in unity.

And so, according to the Scriptures, the Church began in oneness in Christ Jesus the Head. It has  been maintaining that oneness as it grows through time. The Church, being the Body of Christ, is one with Jesus Christ, the Head of the Body. Each member brought by the Spirit into the Church, the Body of Christ, is brought into a living connection with Jesus Christ “the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God” (Colossians 2:19). Note how the Bible describes the close knittedness in which the members of the Body of Christ exist as the Church grows - knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God.

Another Scripture passage, highlighting the emergence of the Church after the resurrection of Christ in oneness as it grows, points out to us that Jesus Christ Himself after His resurrection when He became Head of the Church distributed ministry gifts in the Church to ensure that the members of His Body should not be like children unstable and influenced by erroneous doctrines, “but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head - Christ - from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love” (Ephesians 4:15-16).

And so, it is clear the Bible does not teach that the Church, the Body of Christ, grows to eventually become one. This is often stated by some but a close examination of the Bible’s description of the Body of Christ, like the Scripture passages we just referred to, shows it is not so. Obviously, we would not think of a living body of any kind growing to eventually unite its parts in one. Every living body begins in wholeness and oneness with parts bonded together in union and grows in dimension. So it is with the Body of Christ, which began in Jesus with members knit together by joints and ligaments and grows with the increase that is from God.

Therefore, since the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, from generation to generation, the Church, the Body of Christ, has been growing, incorporating every true believer who accepts Jesus Christ into that unity of faith that exists within the Body of Christ, until it eventually reaches “to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13-16). Thus, we see the Bible clearly teaches us that the Church, the Body of Christ, is not a crowd of disorganized, divided people in the process of being united eventually into oneness. The Church, the Body of Christ, with Jesus Christ as the Head began its growth in oneness in Christ and has continued to grow in oneness with its members “joined and knit together” by the Spirit in Christ.

In light of this we must be careful to perceive the Church, the Body of Christ, in the way God forms it and the Bible describes it. There is one Church.

One Church

Our Lord Jesus even before His death and resurrection and the emergence of the Church in Him asked the Father for this unity to exist in the Church among all who believe in Him. He prayed in John 17:20-23: “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.”

Human religious organizations and denominations may divide people through doctrines and traditions. And some of us tend to focus on these man-made designs that seem to divide God’s people. But no man can divide what God unites. The glory of the Christ that binds believers in Christ together is far greater than these vain divisive designs that men have set up in the midst of God’s people. In God’s own time all of these divisions will fade away as the glory of the oneness of the Church is revealed to the world. True believers in Christ abide in Christ and they must remain aware that they are members of the Body of Christ and cannot be boxed into divisive man-made organizations. The Church, the Body of Christ, is God’s institution to unite His people. Let us ensure we view it that way and that we truly belong to it, and that, moreover, we can see every believer in Christ every where throughout time as one with us in the glorious Body of Christ, the Church universal.

The fact is the Church is a spiritual institution. The Bible states in 1 Peter 2:5, “You also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” Therefore, being a spiritual institution, the actual condition of the true Church may not be visible to the eyes. In fact, God has called upon the just to live by faith and to walk by faith, not by sight (Hebrews 10:38; 2 Corinthians 5:7). This is quite relevant to us in perceiving the Church to be what God declares it to be rather than what we may see it to be. And in light of the teachings of the Bible that God has composed the Church, the Body of Christ, without schism, we must look away from the visible and by faith embrace the truth of that invisible enduring character of the oneness of the Church declared in the Bible. This we can do by faith “while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:18).

It is true denominationalism, sectarianism, and other visible forms of schism among God’s people have informed the orthodox concept of a divided Church. But if we are going to recognize the Church as God declares it to be, we must have faith in God and believe according to His word that He composes the Church so that there is no schism in it. Our Lord Jesus Christ is building a Church in which there is no division. Every believer in Christ should allow the Holy Spirit to awaken in him the awareness of the reality of the oneness of the Body of Christ of which he is a member. If we recall the parable of the tares and the wheat given by Jesus Christ to describe the Church, we will note that the tares sown by the enemy among the wheat were allowed to grow and had no adverse effect whatsoever on the full development of the wheat (Matthew 13:24-30).

We read in 2 Timothy  2:19: “Nevertheless the solid foundation of God stands, having this seal: ‘The Lord knows those who are His,’ and, ‘Let everyone who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity.’” The true Church universal is one and let us who believe in Christ affirm that on the authority of the word of God and desire with all of our hearts to be a part of the true united Church. The oneness or unity of the Church is a spiritual reality produced by God in His spiritual house, which the Church universal is. And if we who belong to the Church universal recognize and accept its oneness by faith, we will not be affected by any form of schism produced by man or devils in the midst of the people of God. We will uphold the truth of being one in Christ and the Body of Christ with Christian believers everywhere and throughout time.

Come to the Church

If you are not part of the Church universal because you have not received Jesus Christ, and may be even a devoted member of one of those divisive religious denominations, then the door is open to welcome you into the Body of Christ. If you are weary of the conflicts and divisions which religions generate among people worldwide and want to be truly united with God’s people, then receive Jesus Christ. Believe that God has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ to save us from sin, and receive Jesus now into your heart. The Spirit of God will impart into you the life of Christ and make you a member of the Church, the Body of Christ. You will be joined to Christ Jesus the Head and with God’s people everywhere, united in the one Church universal, the Body of Christ. Then walk in that faith, and don’t let human philosophy and traditions hinder you from taking your place in the Church universal in Christ.

“Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude. See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority; and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead” (Colossians 2:6-12).

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