Visualizing the Church
Ephesians 2:19-22
Having something important tosay is like landing a privatejet in a jungle. You need a nice long runway to land your plane safely.You don’t want to crash!
That’s what Paul is doing inEphesians. From the start of Ch. 1 to the end of Ch. 2, he prepares the way foran extraordinary subject – the church. So, he begins his runway in eternity pastand describes all that God has done bring the church into existence today.
In Ch. 2, he proves that God alonereceives the credit for putting the church together. By grace alone, he hasrescued rebellious people like us from our sins. Through Christ alone, he has givenus peace with both with him and with one another.
Until now, we know the churchis a widespread group of people who are delivered from sin and united by faithin Christ. Yet there’s so much more to learn. That’s why Paul gives us threeanalogies to help us visualize the church in our minds (Eph 2:19-22). The church is like a city, afamily, and a building.
Through these analogies (orword pictures), Paul makes his runway even longer, so we will understand thechurch as clearly as possible. He wants us to understand that through thechurch, God is spreading his personal presence throughout the world.
The church is like a city.
Paul writes, “You are nolonger strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints” (Eph2:19). In this explanation, he uses social and political terms to illustratefirst what people in the church are not like and second what they arelike.
- Strangers describespeople from a foreign country who live outside your own country and are justpassing through.
- Foreigners describespeople who originate in a foreign country but are living in your country now.
Both words refer to people fromsomewhere else who don’t belong in your country, even if they’re living there now.Because of their foreign status, their legal rights were limited and so wastheir access to social privileges and benefits.
But there are no strangers andforeigners in the church. Everyone who believes on Christ becomes a fellow citizen. This worddescribes a person who enjoys all the legal rights and social benefits of beinga natural-born citizen.
To put this in perspective, whenPaul wrote to the church in Ephesus, the city had about 250,000 – 300,000 peopleliving there. Yet most of these people were foreign residents (“foreigners”), notcitizens. In fact, evidence suggests that less than 1,000 people were actual citizens.[1]
This statistic reveals howspecial it was to be a citizen. No matter what your ethnic background may be andno matter how bad a person you once were, if you’ve believed on Christ as yourGod and Savior, you’re in elite company.
There are no resident aliensin the church. We are all citizens with VIP status. We’re all saints, aterm that Paul used at the start of his letter to describe the Christians inEphesus as “holy people in an unholy city” (Eph 1:1).
To be saints means Godhas chosen us for his own special purpose. It also shows that God doesn’televate one ethnicity over another. We’re not converted Israelites nor are we second-classpeople in God’s plan. We’re all saints with equal value in God’s sight and purposein his plan. None of us are more holy than another. We’re all holy throughChrist.
The church is like a family.
To ensure we understand howspecial it is to be in the church, Paul said we’re also “members of thehousehold of God” (Eph 2:19). Being citizens emphasizes the exclusive privilegesof being in the church but being members of God’s family emphasizes “a sense ofbelonging and closeness” that only family members enjoy.[2]
From a spiritual standpoint,we’re all born as spiritual orphans, abandoned and alone. We embrace mottoslike “survival of the fittest,” “each for his own,” and, “may the best man win.”We say things like, “It’s a dog-eat-dog world,” and we treat each other thatway.
When you believe on Christ as Godand Savior, this sorry outlook goes away. You no longer live like a dog on thestreet.
- You become a citizen of God’s city and a memberof his family.
- You get your own home within the city walls andyour own room within his house.
- You get a passport to the city and keys to hishouse.
No matter who you were orwhere you came from before, you’re in. In the church, we’re all saints andchildren of God. We’re all brothers and sisters to one another, too.
Knowing this is the key toacting like this. To live like a saint, you need to know that you are onefirst. To treat one another as brothers and sisters, we need to know that weare brothers and sisters first – and in the church, that’s what we are.
The church is like a building.
Before moving on, Paul tellsus the church is like one more thing. From a view of God’s city, he zooms in toa view of God’s family. Then he zooms in to the house itself – the building.The church is like a city, a family, and a building. Can you see that in yourmind?
Paul says, “Having been builton the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being thechief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, growsinto a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for adwelling place of God in the Spirit” (Eph 2:20-22).
This is a fascinating wordpicture to use here because Paul recently described God’s demolition projectwhen he “tore down the wall” that separated Jews from Gentiles (and both fromGod, Eph 2:14). Now here we discover that though Christ demolished this wall,he is now constructing something entirely new in its place – the church.
This building is not aphysical structure. After all, the church is not a building, it’s people. Still,thinking about a building helps us visualize the church more clearly. In fact, Pauldescribes a building that is made of people.
As members of the church, we are the building materials of the church.
We are the wooden beams, electricalwires, insulation, and drywall – the windows and the doors. As the buildingmaterials of the church, there’s one thing we are not, however – the foundation.The foundation of the church was started and finished in the first century.
Can you see the differencebetween “having been built” (v. 20), and then “being fitted together” (v. 21) and“are being built together” (v. 22)? “Having been” describes something thathappened in the past, but “being” describes something happening today.
The foundation of the churchwas started and finished in the first century AD and happened through the “apostlesand prophets” (v. 20). Paul pairs these people together throughout this letterto the Ephesians.
- Ephesians3:5 says,“Which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now beenrevealed by the Spirit to his holy apostles and prophets.”
- Ephesians4:11 says,“He himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and somepastors and teachers.”
Apostles were people who had seen the resurrected Christ andbeen sent by him to reveal the teaching we needed from God. Old Testamentteaching was good but not enough, so through the apostles, God revealed moreteaching for the church in the New Testament.
Prophets were people who hadn’tnecessarily seen Christ resurrected, but who gave important teaching from God untilthe NT was available. Once the NT was written, apostles and prophets went away.They laid the foundation that we’re building on today.
That’s why Faith Baptist Churchteaches from the Bible. No members give new revelation or visions, insights ormessages from God. Instead, we go back to the foundation – the Word of God thatwas given to us by the apostles (Acts 2:42; 2 Tim 3:16-17; 2 Tim 4:2).
The foundation was built by oneother person, though, besides the apostles and prophets. This person is JesusChrist.
Christ is the cornerstone, the most important person of all.
“The cornerstone – the mostsignificant part of the foundation of the temple. This large stone bore much ofthe weight of the building and tied the walls firmly together.”[3]
By saying, “Jesus Christ himself,” and not just, “JesusChrist,” Paul announces that Christ, Christ alone, is the centerpiece of thechurch. Without him, the foundation would be no good. The church would be nothing.
That’s why membership in thechurch begins with believing the truth about Jesus (Matt 16:18; Acts 2:41; 8:37).He is the foundation of the foundation. The apostles and prophets just taughtus about Christ and said what Christ wanted them to say.
The foundation has been laid, but the church building project continues.
It’s a building project that’sbeen going on for over 2,000 years. It is being “fitted together” and “builttogether” today – and it’s growing. That’s the main verb in these verses!
These two words are constructionwords.
- One describes the way that God joins a husbandand wife together in marriage or how the different parts of our bodies arejoined with tendons, ligaments, and so on.
- The other describes the careful placement ofeach part, putting each member into the right church so that his or her gifts,abilities, personality, and resources will help build up the church in astrategic, necessary way.
That’s what God is doing forthe church today – building it one piece, one member at a time. That’s how youbecame a part of your church. God put you there, just as a master architect assignsimportant pieces to a skyscraper or bridge under construction.
God isn’t building a bridge or a skyscraper, he’s building a temple.
It is a “holy temple,” whichmeans it’s a building (a spiritual building, that is) with a special purposefrom God. It is the “dwelling place” for God in this world. It’s where hispersonal presence, the Holy Spirit, resides.
Today, God doesn’t walk aroundin a garden, as he did at the beginning in the Garden of Eden. Nor does he placehis presence in Moses’ tabernacle or Solomon’s Temple. What’s more, he doesn’tdwell in shrines, temples, mosques, cathedrals, or sacred spaces of any kind …but in the people of God spread throughout the nations of the world.
So as the church continues to grow, God’s true temple expands throughout the world. It (ahem, we) brings more and more people into contact with the personal presence of God.
Through this ever-expandingbuilding project, God is spreading his personal presence throughout the worldand becoming a neighbor to more and more people who need the salvation thatChrist alone provides.
Think about it this way. Otherreligions make us go on pilgrimages to visit their holy sites, whether a templeor shrine on the other side of the world or a graveyard outside the city. Butthe temple of God is always expanding and coming to a neighborhood near you. Itgrows and travels through its members, through the Christians who live nextdoor.
- The church is a city where we enjoy the privilegesof first-class citizens.
- It is a family where we enjoy the benefits ofbeing God’s children.
- The church is a building – an ever-expandingTemple where the Holy Spirit dwells, bringing more and more people into personalcontact with God.
Accordingto Politico, New York State posted new guidelines on Friday that would halt all “non-essential” constructionwork to fight the spread of the coronavirus. Only “essential” projectswould continue, like hospitals, affordable housing, and homeless shelters.
But what about the church?Though we’re not able to gather in person and do our Saturday gospel tractoutreach, has God halted the growth of the church and the expansion of histemple in our city? He has not.
Of God’s spiritual buildingproject – the church – Christ himself said this, “I will build my church, andthe gates of Hades shall not prevail against it” (Matt 16:18). With these words, Christ assures usthat he is building the church today.
Just as persecution, worldwars, natural disasters, even epidemics have threatened the church’s progress forcenturies, these “counsels of death” cannot halt Christ’s construction of his church.
So, the question for you todayis twofold:
First, are you in? Are you amember of the church and a part of God’s spiritual building project in theworld? If not, then our current pandemic outbreak should cause you to fear. Ifyou die, you will go into an eternity without God destined for wrath because ofyour sin (Eph 2:3). If that’s you today, then will you believe on Christ aloneas your God and Savior to receive his mercy and salvation (Eph 2:4, 8-9).
Second, to those who aresaved, how are you contributing to the construction of the church? What are youdoing to help it grow stronger and expand during this challenging pandemic?Christ builds the church through its members, not apart from them.
When Christ adds you to the church,he intends to add others too through you. Who is he working on through you? Theseare the “good works” he has created you to accomplish (Eph 2:10). How will you expand his personalpresence in the world this week ahead?
[1] S. M. Baugh, Ephesians: EvangelicalExegetical Commentary, ed. Wayne H. House, Hall W. Harris III, and AndrewW. Pitts, Evangelical Exegetical Commentary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press,2015), 199-200.
[2] Clinton E. Arnold, Ephesians,Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan,2010), 169.
[3] Arnold, Ephesians, 171.
