CHURCH {4KK\ri<Tia).~YoT the history of the word iKK\-T)(Tla and its relation to such Heb. terms as "^ns and niy, see art. Congregation.
In the present art. we shall discus* —
L Dbfinition of Ciuirch w NT. IL Tub AtTi'AL CiM'Hcn.
(A) Conditions of Membership. \B) The Life of the Church. i. The Public Worship, li. Christian Rule of Conduct. (O The Single Community. It« Funotloiit uut Orffani-
zalion. (D) The whole Church. IIL Tub IuRALCut*Bcu.
I. Dkfinition of THE Church IN NT. —
'^KKXijcia is used in NT of a single community of Christians, or of the sum of tlie single communi- ties, the whole body of Christians. In the last sense, two points oi view are possible, and both are found in NT. We may think of the Church as an * enipiric matter of fact,' i.e. as a collection of individuals, the actual Church, or we m:iv cease to tliink of the Cluirch aa a noun of mul- titude and regard it a.s a single individual entity, the idctil Church. The second point of view is closely related to the lirst. If we a-sk what is in the minds of the writers in this u.sage, we find that ultimately they are thinking, nut of a single
entity, but of a collection of individuals. So when St. Paul says the Church is the ' body ' or * bride* of Christ, he is really expressing under the figure of a single entity, the Church, the relation in which Christ stands to the individual members. There is, however, a real dillerence be- tween the conception of actual and ideal Clmrch in two respects. (1) The concei)tion of the attual Church regards it as it really is, i.e. a body of indi- viduals of various degrees of imperfection; while the ideal Church is a body whose members represent tlie ideal of membership, i.e. it is a perfect Churcb, or at least one free from tlie negative aspect of evil, (2) The actual Church is composed of the members who are still alive and in the world at the time of speaking; while the conception of the ideal Church does not denote a definite number of members at a definite time, but implies a membership inde- pendent of time. The latter is, in fact, an ideal, not an empirical, body. Hence it splits otr from the later conception of the ' invisible Church, i.e. tlie Church as composed of all its members, deail and living; for it refers neither to dead nor living Cliristians, but to an indelinite body of membera belonging to no time, present, past, or future, because it is a timeless ideal conception.
The conception of the Church in NT stands in so close a relation to two other conceptions, viz. the ' people of Israel ' and the 'kingdom of God,' that it is necessary here to say something as to the connexion between these ideas.
(a) Th' Church and the People of /xrael.—lhe Jewish nation, by the crucillxion of the Messiah, brought down upon them- selves their final and irrevocable rejection. Jews were called upon to save themselves from 'this crooked generation ' (Ac 'Z*'^). Since Christ came there was ' none other name under heaven which is given amons; men wherein we mvist be saved' (4i2), It was no longer enough to live after Moses; it was only by accepting the baptism of Christ that the Jew could obtain remission of sins. liut at the outset the Christian still remained a Jew. Ilia new profession did not absolve him from the law and the institutions of Moses. So the Church starts aa a society within the Jewish nation. The distinction is already to hand between the actual Isr. and the true people of (Joil. The be- lievers are the ' remnant" (cf. Uo llO) in the actual Israel, which is the preparation (or the restored and perfected Isr. of the prophets. The Christ, who has already once appeared, is waiting for * Israel' to repent and believe on Him, that He may come again and all things be restore*! (Ac S'^f '^i 631), aU that do not accept Him shall be utterly destroyed from amon^ the people (323). Here, then, we see the Churcli identified wiiii the people of Israel, but distinguished, on the one band, from the existing Jewish nation, and, on the other, from the restored Isr. of prophecy. The 'second coming' is to see the identifi- cation of the actual with the ideal Isr., by the incorporation of those who believe on Christ with the latter, and the aestruction of the unbelievers. So in the ilessianic age, Church and ideal Isr. and actual Isr. will be one and the same, but at present they are distinguished. It was necessary, however, that this view should be uio<]ihed when the admission of Uentiles wa^ pennitted without demanding circumcision from them. Tiie
firevious conccjition of the Church and of the future restored sr. was confined to the exclusively national ideals of Jewish tradition. It did not travel beyond the ' Israel after the fie.sh.' In the Pauline conception, however, the Church is still regarded as the chosen folk, but a distinction appears between Isr. ' after the flesh ' (1 Co 10»»J and the ' Isr. of God ' (Gal tji8). God hiis taken from the heathen a 'peonle for his name' (Ac 151*), ami In this new Isr. ' they are not all Isr. which are of Isr.' (Ko 9"). Ttie faithful remnant within Isr., which before wa« identified with the Church, is now but a small part of it. The 'oracles of God ' are no longer entrusted to the Jewish nation, for the Christians have succeeded ibe Jews as tlie vehicles of inspiration (Eph 36, He V'i, cf. with 2^*). The Church, then, stands over against the actual Isr. as a non-Jewish spiritual Israel. In the picture of Ro lU^^^, the Church is an olive tree in which the patriarchs are the 'root,* the unbelieving Jews are rejected branches, and the Gentiles new branches grafted in from *)>» wild olive. At the same time, to the Jewish and prmiilive Christian, belief in a restoration of the natural Isr. to the posi- tion of a world-sulMiuiiig kingdom (cf. Ac \*^) succeeds the idea of the kinifdom of God aa Christ Himself conceived it, i.e. ibe universal rule of Christian principles, a cosmopolitan instead of a national conception.