The Gospel Made Visible

    “... The church should be regarded as important to Christians because of its importance to Christ. Christ founded the church (Matthew 16:18), purchased it with his blood (Acts 20:28), and intimately identifies himself with it (Acts 9:4). The church is the body of Christ (Eph. 1:23; 4:12; 5:23-32; Col. 1:18, 24; 3:15; 1 Cor. 12:12ff, 27), the dwelling place of his Spirit (Rom 8:9, 11, 16; 1 Cor. 3:16-17; 6:11, 15-17; Eph. 2:18, 22; 4:4), and the chief instrument for glorifying God in the world. Finally, the church is God’s instrument for bringing both the gospel to the nations and a great host of redeemed humanity to himself (Rev. 5:9).

“More than once, Jesus said love for him would be demonstrated by obedience to his commandments (John 14:15, 23). Such obedience not only requires individual commitment and action from Christians, it requires a committed corporate obedience. Together individuals in churches will go, disciple, baptize, teach to obey, love, remember, and commemorate his substitutionary death with bread and the fruit of the vine.

“But not only should the enduring authority of Christ’s commands compel Christians to study the Bible’s teaching on the church. Present day errors in the understanding and the practice of the church will, if they prevail still more, further obscure the gospel. Christian proclamation might make the gospel audible, but Christians living together in local congregations make the gospel visible (see John 13:34-35). The church is the gospel-made-visible.””

–Mark Dever, Ecclesiology, p. 1.