KindiakMath

Here’s a simple question that many genuine Christians ask:

Do we need to go to church?

If someone answers ‘Yes’, then they will be met with opposition: that means going to church turns us from unsaved to saved, and therefore we are meriting our salvation (i.e. by going to church). If another answers ‘No’, then they will be met with equally righteous opposition: Jesus called us to love one another in a local church setting.

So which is it?

An immediate response is: the word ‘need’ is ambiguous. But what can better help settle this dispute is to broaden our perspective of “church”.

This is what I believe to be the central thesis of the Bible: God has always wanted to create a kingdom-family that includes human beings, and made it possible, ultimately through the second Person of the Trinity: Jesus Christ the Son of God.

Lemma 1. At creation, God created human beings to image Him and partner Him in extending life-giving blessing.

Proof. After setting the natural architecture in place, God created humans, His climatic creation:

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” [Genesis 1:26–28]

The kind of dominion is meant to be a kind and caring one:

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him? [Psalm 8:3–4]

The first humans were, in a sense, the first of the “people of God”.

However, humans rebelled against God and were exiled from His good Garden. The rest of the Bible outlines God’s plan to bring people back to the Garden, saturated with God’s rest:

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. [Genesis 2:1–3]

The next time we see God calling a people for Himself is in the subset of descendants of Abraham called Israel.

Lemma 2. After the fall, God called people for Himself, called Israel, as a subset of Abraham’s descendants.

Proof. God first makes His promise to multiply Abraham’s generations.

Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” [Genesis 12:1–3]

Israel comes from Abraham’s family tree, and becomes the massive people group that God has promised:

These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob, each with his household: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin, Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher. All the descendants of Jacob were seventy persons; Joseph was already in Egypt. Then Joseph died, and all his brothers and all that generation. But the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them. [Exodus 1:1–7]

Furthermore, God rescues them from slavery in Egypt, and forged a covenant—very much akin to a marriage agreement—of covenant loyalty.

Say therefore to the people of Israel, I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am the LORD. [Exodus 6:6–8]

They would be His people, and He would be their God:

You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ [Exodus 19:4–6]

And even after being exiled for betraying their covenant with God, He does not give them up as His people, even if they behaved like it for some time:

And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. [Ezekiel 36:26–28]

From these uses, we can define the phrase “God’s people”.

Definition 1. A group of people is called “God’s people” or “the people of God” if they remain in loyal covenant with the LORD.

According to Definition 1, God has not abandoned Israel. Rather, Israel has abandoned God in order to worship after foreign gods, be it for national treaties or for material economics:

But they would not listen, but were stubborn, as their fathers had been, who did not believe in the LORD their God. They despised his statutes and his covenant that he made with their fathers and the warnings that he gave them. They went after false idols and became false, and they followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the LORD had commanded them that they should not do like them. And they abandoned all the commandments of the LORD their God, and made for themselves metal images of two calves; and they made an Asherah and worshiped all the host of heaven and served Baal. And they burned their sons and their daughters as offerings and used divination and omens and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking him to anger. Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel and removed them out of his sight. None was left but the tribe of Judah only. [2 Kings 17:14–18]

Nevertheless, though the nation has, by-and-large, broken their loyalty with the LORD, the LORD upholds His loyalty with them, and even promises to reserve and preserve a remnant who has remained loyal to Him:

In that day the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no more lean on him who struck them, but will lean on the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. A remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God. For though your people Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will return. Destruction is decreed, overflowing with righteousness. For the Lord GOD of hosts will make a full end, as decreed, in the midst of all the earth. [Isaiah 10:20–23]

How would God accomplish His goal to bring this remnant back to Himself?

Theorem 1. God grants anyone, especially this remnant of Israel, to become His people through His Son, Jesus.

Proof. Paul’s emphasises membership into God’s family, thereby recipients of God’s covenant loyalty, through Jesus Christ:

In love, God predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. [Ephesians 1:4–6]

God causes us to regard Jesus as Saviour, God, and King (i.e. believe in Jesus), thereby rescuing us from a sin-death spiral into a new citizenship into His kingdom:

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. [Ephesians 2:4–7]

This kingdom-family includes the remnant of Israel whom God have reserved and preserved to believe in Jesus:

I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel? “Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.” But what is God’s reply to him? “I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace. [Romans 11:1–6]

Furthermore, this kingdom-family is one and the same as the family that God welcomes non-Jews into through Jesus:

Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. [Ephesians 2:11–13]

Therefore, Christians of any ethnicity are now the people of God:

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. [1 Peter 2:9–10]

Definition 2. The church is the people of God, and it includes the remnant of Israel who have placed their faith in Jesus, rather than replacing them.

Let’s return to the question we opened with:

Do we need to go to church?

The definition of the church as per Definition 2 answers the question that we set out to resolve. We need to go to church because in Christ, together, are the church—that is, the people of God (Theorem 1). Jesus did not merely save us as individuals; He saved us into His body, i.e. His church, and thereby His kingdom-family:

And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. [Ephesians 1:22]

Note that this conclusion makes no mention of which church to go to. The apostolic churches like the Roman Catholic Church and the various Orthodox Churches insist that we must go to them since they hold the original teaching and practices of Jesus. Protestant Christians, on the other hand, do not assert that any particular church holds a monopoly on membership into God’s kingdom-family. And there are many Protestant churches, both classical and non-classical ones, that Christians in large cities today could plausibly attend.

Furthermore, while the technical answer to the question of church attendance has been resolved, many people have a deeper need that provoked such a question in the first place: church hurt. By-and-large, being hesitant to be a member of a church has more to do with hurts done by people in the church than it is an issue of theology (though the two are inextricably inseparable).

What I mean is this: it is entirely possible for a church to, in principle, have sufficiently rigorously orthodox theology, and yet contain people who deal hurt against others, even after being rescued from Christ out of a sin-death spiral. This sad reality isn’t a bug, but a feature.

Theorem 2. People in the church will, unfortunately, still sin.

Proof. The Apostle John presumes that Christians—saved by Christ and in covenant loyalty with God—will still fall short of His glory via sin:

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. [1 John 1:8–10]

Among many instructions, Paul’s instructions to many of the various early churches includes the command to “forgive one another”, which presumes that Christians would sin:

Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. [Ephesians 4:31–32]

And Jesus even implies that we will inevitably sin against God and against one another, prompting our need to ask Him for forgiveness:

Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. [Matthew 6:11–13]

In light of the reality of sin in church, do we need to go there? Do we need to be connected to God’s people?

Absolutely Yes.

While we are all infected with sin that has been forgiven by Christ, the sin still lingers in us and leads to self-centred hurt against others. However, as a church, we have committed to remain in covenant loyalty (i.e. faithful) to the Triune God and vice versa, whose Spirit enables us to remain faithful to Him. We may be infected by sin now, but that does not stop God from calling us His people.

What’s perhaps cliched but true is this: be that as it may that sin lingers in Christians, let it be that Christians linger no more in sin:

No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God. [1 John 3:9]

And this sin-infection will not remain forever.

Theorem 3. There will come a time when the church will no longer have lingering sin, and will dwell with the full presence of God forever more.

Proof. The work of God’s Spirit in our hearts to free us from our sin-death spiral habits has began and will complete its work at Christ’s return:

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. [Philippians 1:6–7]

Christ is said to be washing the church beautifully clean by the water of His word:

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. [Ephesians 5:26–27]

Finally, at His return, God will dwell with us in His full presence, and He shall be our God, and we shall be His people forevermore, no more plagued by the effects of sin, and therefore, sin itself:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” [Revelation 21:1–4]

Until that day, we need to stick together and keep pressing on in anticipation and perseverance:

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. [Hebrews 10:23–25]

—Joel Kindiak, 15 Dec 25, 2058H