God’s People In The Church?
I am listening to a podcast where the preacher mentioned, “…as God’s people in the church.” Friends, we need to do a better job with our language because it is it confusing to unbelievers and simply unbiblical. The church is God’s people. God’s people are not in the church; God’s people are the church. If you are a child of God, you are part of the church (the body of the saved). You cannot be part of the church and not be a child of God. The saved are the church.
And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. (Acts 2:47; ESV). The NKJV reads, “And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.”
The church is not an entity or a box that exists outside of the saved, as if the saved must get into the church. The saved are the church. When God forgives us of our sins through the blood of Jesus, we are automatically added the number who are saved, the church.
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1 Comment so farOne Response to “God’s People In The Church?”
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Jim Swindle
August 23, 2009 at 9:20 pm
You’re right, of course, that God’s people ARE the church. Yet there’s also a sense in which, just as “They are not all Israel who are from Israel” (Romans 9:6), not all who are in the (visible) church are in the (true) church.