I Went to Church Yesterday

The second of an undetermined number in a series on the character and need for corporate worship.

I went to church yesterday. Why not? I had no choice! I'm the preacher/pastor. In addition, I went to church because the other believers and I are the church. In this case the church is a noun and not a verb– we do not do church, as some reconstructionists shamelessly declare, we are the church, the body of Christ, the covenant collective, the communion of saints, inseparably connected to one another by the eternal bond of the Holy Spirit. Our communion is a necessary derivative of our in union with Christ our Head and it is preeminently expressed and experienced when the saints gather together in corporate worship.

The idea of the communion of the saints is fundamentally contra mundum. That is, it maintains a militant stand against this fallen world that cherishes confusion, celebrates chaos, criticizes continuity, condemns coherence and chides community. This communion of saints with its sense of orderliness, system of cohesion, standing in continuity with all the saints of the past and the future, maintains a defiant posture against the very character and claims of a lost and dying world. Though always tempted and in varying degrees impacted by worldly homogenizing tendencies to be relevant and "practical," this communion continues to maintain its distinctiveness from the world by clinging to the symbols of transcendence, by proclaiming the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ and by serving as God's instrument by which he ushers in his kingdom. As a living, spiritual organism, the church, the communion of saints maintains its identity and preserves its integrity by resolutely holding fast to its head and King, Jesus Christ, whose agenda it joyfully incorporates as its own. The church gladly acknowledges that it belongs to God who creates and then re-creates his fallen creatures and then, more than placing them in the body of his Son Jesus Christ, he sovereignly constitutes them as Christ’s body. It is there, in the communio sanctorum as the gospel message is faithfully declared and as the sacraments are properly administered, that the people of God are continually transformed by his Spirit from glory to glory.

It is there as these divinely ordained means of grace are offered and received by God's people that they receive his help to inspire and energize them along the way. It is there as this worshiping community mimics the activities in heaven, that its real needs for forgiveness of sins, assurance of salvation, guidance and sustenance for the days ahead, reaffirmation as God's own, peculiar covenant people and for eternal hope, are declared and received. It is there the eternal verities of the character of God, the Person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ and the ongoing ministry of the Holy Spirit who applies the great truths of Christ's accomplished salvation to the heart's of God's elect, are confidently extolled and consolingly embraced.

With such a perspective and with such principles in hand and heart, this communion is being taught more and more to be what it really is, an other-worldly people proclaiming to a fallen world God's secret wisdom that was once hidden but that is now revealed. It boldly declares to the world that its only hope rests in the true King, the very Lord of glory whom it does not know and indeed, whom it cannot know, for if it could, it and its leaders would not have crucified him, the very Lord of glory, 1 Cor 2:8. But where did I learn all of this? And where did I proclaim all of this? In church, where I went yesterday, where else?