QUOTES - CHURCH
Wherefore, brethren, if we do the will of God our Father, we shall be of the first Church, which is spiritual, which was created before the sun and moon . . . let us choose rather to be of the Church of life, that we may be saved. And I do not suppose ye are ignorant that the living Church is the body of Christ . . . And the Books and the Apostles plainly declare that the Church existeth not now for the first time, but hath been from the beginning: for she was spiritual, as our Jesus also was spiritual, but was manifested in the last days that he might save us (An Ancient Homily, The Apostles Fathers).
Believers and unbelievers continue to share equally in cultural vocations, by God’s common grace. However, Christ’s kingdom of grace is advanced in the Great Commission, by God’s saving grace (Michael Horton, The Christian Faith).
The church is the end-times gathering of the scattered sheep of Israel and the nations under the sovereign care of Yahweh the Good Shepherd (Michael Horton, The Christian Faith).
Through the Word of Christ the Spirit creates faith in Christ, and where this is present, there is the church (Michael Horton, The Christian Faith).
The visible church of professing believers and their children, not the invisible church of the elect, is available to us now (Michael Horton, The Christian Faith).
These apostle is normative, for his teaching governs all the teaching in the church for all generations. The elder is situational, the one who applies the apostles’ teaching to all the situations and problems of each church. The deacon is existential, the one who ministers Jesus’ love to those in need (John Frame, Systematic Theology).
All of the plan of redemption, of course, from eternity past, has reference to the church as preparing for its creation, hence truly “foundation.” The entire history of the Messianic nation—call, selection, growth, training, discipline and judgment, from Abraham to joseph and Mary—which produced Jesus Christ, Lord of the church, is foundational (Robert Duncan Culver, Systematic Theology).
The unity in diversity and the diversity in unity of the human body are the ideas of interest to Paul (Robert Duncan Culver, Systematic Theology).
But whether the person being baptized should be wholly immersed, and whether thrice or once, whether he should only be sprinkled with poured water—these details are of no importance, but ought to be optional to churches according to the diversity of countries. Yet the word “baptize” means to immerse, and it is clear that the rite of immersion was observed in the ancient church (John Calvin, Institutes).
The Kingdom is primarily the dynamic reign or kingly rule of God, and, derivatively, the sphere in which the rule is experienced . . . the church is the community of the Kingdom but never the Kingdom itself . . . the Kingdom is the rule of God; the church is a society of men (George Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament).
Clearly the unity among Christians for which our Lord is praying here is to be a visible unity if, as he prays, the world is to learn from it that the Father has sent him (Robert L. Reymond, A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith).
It is worth remarking that in this passage [Matt. 16:18-19] the Church and the kingdom of heaven are apparently alternative expressions for the same thing (James Denney, Studies in Theology).
What, then, you may ask, is the distinction between the two? I am not confident that in principle there is any. The explanation of their use in the new Testament is to be sought, I imagine, rather in historical than in dogmatic considerations (James Denney, Studies in Theology).
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