THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
18) he spoke of that community in a general way; but in the other (Matt, xviii. 17 sqq.) he referred more definitely to the association of his followers as met together to deal with events and needs affecting their inner life. According to the former passage, he intended to build his ^JL^dk church upon the rock Peter, who just Apostle before had taken the lead among the disciples with his confession. The word and its historical fulfilment must be construed by the context. It will not do to interpret the rock as faith in Christ. Peter is not the foundation in the sense in which Christ applies the term to himself (Matt. xxi. 42). But the church was originally built, as the Acts testify, upon the preaching and work of this " rock-man," though other apostles were joined with him (Eph. ii. 20; Rev. xxi. 14; Gal. ii. 9). Whether the promise in regard to the foundation had anything to do with a continuous government of the church, or with a line of successors to Peter, is one of the fundamental points of controversy between Protestants and Roman Catholics.
The twelve apostles were indeed designated for a position of prominence in the future organization by the status which they acquired in relation to Jesus during his earthly ministry, as witnesses of his deeds and the hearers of his words (John xv. 27; Acts i. 21, 22). But no definite difference in authority was provided between them 3. Bela- j^jj^ other disciples; and their work *'^°the°^ seems to consist not in the internal Twelve direction of the churches, but rather, as soon as these were once established, in further dissemination of the message. Christ spoke of sending " prophets and wise men and scribes " to give this message (Matt, xxiii. 34); but nowhere did he sum up such activities as are thus indicated into the terms of a fixed and limited office, or prescribe the manner in which any persons were to be appointed to discharge them. The names here used recall the pre-Christian dispensation, when such limits and external ordinances did not exist. To the preaching of the gospel of the kingdom and the cultivation of a religious and moral life in the power of that gospel, baptism (q.v.) was added by Christ's own ordinance, as would be known even without the gospel record by the way in which the rite at once took its place and in which it is spoken of by Paul as an essential element of Christianity. The act of baptism in itself had, as the baptism of John shows, no necessary connection with entrance into an organized society; but as soon as there was a society of Christians, it undoubtedly belonged to that. Finally, the Lord's Supper (q.v.) , as he had instituted it for his disciples, was. celebrated by them as a main element in their corporate edification. Evidently, therefore, the foundations already discussed were laid not only for a wider extension of the kingdom of God and for the development of the new life in its individual members, but for a corporate cfnnecticn between them. Yet so far no reason has appeared for the negation of a theory upon which the new Christian community, spreading throughout Palestine and thence among the
heathen, might still live under the external institutions of the old covenant, until the great revelation of the kingdom which was expected at the return of its Lord. The working out of the truth expressed in the saying about putting new wine into old bottles was left to the increasing knowledge of the disciples, as conditioned by their wider experience.
The existence and development of the church is inextricably interwoven with the realization of the kingdom of God in the world. It would be wrong to press such differences as appear between the two conceptions as though the kingdom were the inner or ideal, and the church the 4. The external or real. The kingdom has
and the ^ ^ existence m its subjects and
Church, their actual relations; it accomplishes its destiny by means of the external preaching of the word, and announces itself by external fruits. The church, on the other hand, although like other associations of men it is an external union, is what it is only by virtue of its inner connection with Christ, who remains in the midst of it. There is nothing of an external nature which (if the words of Jesus are the only criterion) is necessary to the existence of the church which does not also belong to the realization of the kingdom. It is commonly said that the church was definitely founded with the descent of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost, and in fact it did on that day enter upon its career with full powers. But it must not be forgotten that the gathering was composed of the disciples who had already formed a coherent body in the name of Christ; to whom he had already said " Receive ye the Holy Ghost " (John XX. 22); and from whose number, by a corporate act, the number of the apostles had been filled out after the fall of Judas. It had thus already been living and working, at first as an association within the larger one of Israel, though with its own meetings for worship and its own officers. The name ekklesia was undoubtedly applied to it very early, before the beginning of Paul's ministry, since he uses it as the universally current title for both Jewish and Gentile associations. It is commonly applied to the separate local bodies of which he spoke, but he used it in the same way for the whole body of Christians whenever he had occasion to mention it, in the older epistles (Gal. i. 13; I Cqr. x. 32, xii. 28, xv. 9) as well as in that to the Ephesians, which some have tried to separate in this particular from the others; and it is so used in Acts ix. 31.
Whether general or local, the church consisted of those who were " sanctified in Christ Jesus " (I Cor. i. 2) or " called to be saints " (Rom. i. 7), with a possible allusion to the etymological connection between kletoi, " called," and
5. Mem- ekklesia. Paul's conception was characthe^ terized by a deep sense of the unity
Church, constituted by the possession of " one Lord, one faith, one baptism " (Eph. iv 5); and elsewhere the entrance into this united fellowship, both with Christ and with each other, was attached to baptism (Gal. iii. 27; I Cor. xii. 13). If the question is asked whether the church as an