The blood bought, heaven bound, body of faithful believers in Christ who have obeyed the gospel in faith, repentance, confession and baptism. This statement says so much about what the church is – let us study each segment of this for a moment.

THE CHURCH IS BLOOD BOUGHT. Acts 20:28 emphasizes that Jesus shed his blood for the church, thus purchasing the church at a cost of his life. We understand that as each person hears the gospel, believes the facts of Jesus life, death, burial and resurrection, that person comes into contact with the blood of Jesus and has his or her sins washed away. Romans 6:1-6 emphasizes that a person comes into contact with the blood of Jesus (which 1 Peter 1:18-19 tells us that we care redeemed by) when we are baptized into his death. Thus, Jesus bought us, who make up the church, with his blood. Jesus did not die for a building, or for anything physical and material thing here on this earth. He died for people – for those who in faith respond to the gospel and do what God has commanded.

THE CHURCH IS HEAVEN BOUND. God wanted and wants man’s fellowship more than anything else in the world. He created man for fellowship, and when man broke that fellowship in the Garden of Eden, the rest of the Bible is written to show man that God loves man and will go to any extent to bring man back to him. Hence, when we have been redeemed and forgiven by the blood of Christ (Ephesians 1:7), and if we continue faithful until death (Revelation 2:10) then we will go to heaven with God and live with him eternally – which is what God has desired all along.

THE CHURCH IS A BODY OF FAITHFUL BELIEVERS. In Ephesians 1:22-23; Colossians 1:18 and Ephesians 4:4 we conclude that the church is the body of Christ, and that as we become Christians, we are added to that body – the church (Acts 2:38, 47). Again, the church has never been, and never will be, of sheetrock, mortar and stone, but of living believers. Peter uses the figure of a building to talk about believers in Christ, when he says that we are “living stones” and being built a “spiritual house,” but that is as far as the analogy goes (1 Peter 2:4, 5). In 1 Corinthians 3:16 and again in 6:19-20 the Bible says that the Holy Spirit dwells in the temple of our bodies (not a building), hence, when the church meets together in a building, the church is said to be in a building, but not the building.

Further, these passages still clearly and firmly teach that as Christ has one body, and as that body is the church, he has only one church. Everything else set up and planted by man will be pulled up and destroyed (Matthew 15:13-14). Hence, we that make up the church must always realize that it is our awesome obligation to make sure that we worship the Lord in the way he has specified in his word. We must make sure that we do all that we do with the Bible in mind, as this is God’s revealed will.

We that are the church must be faithful to God’s will. We cannot pledge allegiance to any other way, creed, catechism, confession of faith or anything other than the inspired Word of God. We must be faithful, when the world turns its back on the church. We must be faithful when other members of the church turn their back on God and his will. We must be “full of faith” and committed enough to stand fast in the faith, even if no one else will.

ARE WE THE CHURCH?