The Church is Christ’s

Karl Barth is not one of my favorite authors; but at times he had a knack for stating the obvious in a memorable way. Maybe I should say a knack for stating what should be obvious but is too often overlooked.
He once closed a lecture on the church by stating, “The church is not a society of pious people; it is the church of Jesus Christ.” What he meant by that is clear from the context; and it is a truth that ought always to be kept in mind.

The church is not a group of people called together to promote an agenda upon which they have come to agree. The church is called together by the Lord. It has not come together to take a vote on what the people think ought to be done. The church works together to carry out the Lord’ will, not the members’ will, not the leadership’s will, but the Lord’s will.

Christ is the head of the church (Eph 1:22; 5:23; Col 1:18). As any physical body takes its orders from the head, so the church gets its instructions from the Lord.

Of course, our Lord is a compassionate head. He cares if the feet are hurting or the arms are weary. He takes steps to alleviate needless suffering of his body. But he also takes steps to strength his body, and sometimes those steps may even increase our pain. He cares, but he does not surrender his Lordship to our complaints or opinions. The body does not instruct the head. The body serves the head. The body obeys the head. The body submits to the head.

One major American denomination planned to hold a conference May 3-15 that was to vote on an extremely plain teaching of scripture, whether to accept it or not. The virus has cancelled that conference, but the whole idea was pointless anyway. The stupidity of such a conference is obvious. The leaders of that denomination are on par with the kindergartner who, not knowing the gender of the rabbit the teacher had brought to class, suggested “let’s vote on it.”

I suppose that one can vote on the gender of a rabbit if he chooses to do so. But the vote does not change a thing. The rabbit is what the rabbit is.

The church either obeys the instructions of its head, or it shows itself to be a rebellious false body, not really the church at all. We should study the instructions. We should obey the instructions. We can disobey the instructions, but we cannot change them.

The church belongs to Christ, not to the people.