We want to begin some studies here today in ecclesiology. I don't know how many weeks we will be in this, but I hope that it will be profitable to us and pleasing to our Lord. We begin here reading in Matthew chapter 16 and verse 13, when Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples saying, whom do men say that I, the son of man, am? And they said, some say that thou art John the Baptist, some Elias, and others Jeremias, or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, but whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, thou art the Christ, the son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. And may the Lord bless the reading of his word. Ecclesiology is the doctrine of the church or the ecclesia. Ekklesia is the Greek word that is translated church here in verse 18, where Jesus says to Peter, that thou art Peter and upon this rock, I will build my Ekklesia or church. The English word church, by the way, derived from the word Lord in the Greek language. It's kind of an interesting way of coming about the word church that doesn't look or sound anything like ecclesia. It's actually It developed in the days of Constantine when they began to build buildings for the worship of God. And they called those buildings Kuriakon, from which we get our word church. And Kuriakon is actually derived from the word Lord. It was the Lord's building or the Lord's house. Now, why should we study ecclesiology? Well, it certainly is biblical. The Lord himself speaks of his church, and it's important that we have a biblical understanding of what his church is and how it functions and our part in it as believers here in this place. Any subject that is biblical is worth our attention and it is profitable to us. Much of our Christian life is connected with the institution of the church. And so it's important that we have a clear understanding of what a church is, and the whole doctrine of the church. Furthermore, we should study this subject because there is much confusion that surrounds it. And this is nothing new. There has been confusion about the church almost since the days of Christ. We can say in a big way since the days of Constantine in the fourth century. And therefore we need to make sure that our understanding and our practice is biblical and not follow the traditions and the confusions that come from Romanism as well as Protestantism. Now, we do try to find all the common ground that we can with those who preach the gospel anywhere. We try to find common ground with gospel-preaching Protestants But on the subject of the New Testament church, there is much that separates us from gospel preaching Protestants. There is too much to ignore or overlook. The biblical and distinctively New Testament understanding of the church is worth maintaining. It is worth standing for, it is worth defending, it is worth passing on. May God help us to do those things. I hope this study will help us to understand why we are Baptists and not Calvinistic evangelical Protestants. These matters of ecclesiology are significant and we should know what we believe and why. Now, some may not think that this doctrine is that important, but we are warned in first Corinthians chapter 11 and verse 22, not to despise the church of God. And of course, in the context of that exhortation or that warning, the Lord's Supper is in view. And those who were careless in their observance of the Lord's Supper were being warned not to think lightly or to think little of the church in which the Lord's Supper is observed. But I don't think that the whole study of the doctrine of the church is far from that context when we consider how that some view the assembled church as something less than the so-called true church, which they say is an invisible church. We'll say more about that, God willing, in weeks to come. I would point out that our Lord refers in Matthew 16, 18 to what he calls my church. He uses the possessive pronoun, my, he claims it, he owns it. And therefore we should not think lightly of it. He doesn't think lightly of it, nor should we. We should rather think highly and think much of what our Lord owns. He is the owner because he is possessive. the founder and the purchaser and the Lord over his church. And our attitude toward him is reflected in our attitude toward his church, his institution. When our Lord speaks of his church, he did not coin a new term. Rather, he employed a term that was commonly used in the Greek culture to describe the gathering of citizens in a city to transact business. There were in the Greek government and the Greek culture, there were cities and there were people in those cities who were citizens and there were people who were not citizens. But when it was time to conduct the business of the city, there would be a calling together, a calling out from the general population, and a calling together of those citizens who were appointed to this gathering. And they would conduct business, transact the matters relating to the city. And that gathering was called Ecclesia. I don't mean to be too technical in any of these things, but the term itself is very interesting. Ekklesia. Ekk meaning out. And the klesia comes from kaleo, which means to call. It is to be called out or the ones who were called out. Ekklesia. called out from the general population and gathered for official action." We do see the term used in that secular way three times in the book of Acts. And I'm going to read those to you from Acts chapter 19. Acts 19, and here in Ephesus is this great uproar over the preaching of the gospel and the the fear on the part of the idol makers that their business was going to be diminished because people were going to worship the true and living God who does not use any idols in his worship and their idols to Diana would would not be worth anything there would be no demand for them and so there is this This coming together of the city, everyone is confused, verse 29. And verse 32 says, some therefore cried one thing and some another for the assembly was confused. And the word assembly there is ecclesia. They were gathered together in a rather disorganized way for conducting business. The assembly was confused and the more part knew not wherefore they were come together. Again in verse 39, but if ye inquire anything concerning other matters, it shall be determined in a lawful, and there's the word again, assembly. assembly, ecclesia. For we are in danger to be called in question for this day's uproar, there being no cause whereby we may give an account of this concourse. And when he had thus spoken, he dismissed the ecclesia, he dismissed the assembly. This is how the term was used in a non-religious secular, civil way in that culture. It is worth mentioning that the term was never used in that culture to speak of a building. It was a gathering of people. It was always a group in a given locality gathered together, a visible assembly. Now, obviously, within the whole realm, either if we're talking about the Roman Empire or the Greek Empire before that, that realm had a term to describe it, and that was the word kingdom. And that, just for the sake of language interest, is the word basileia. The whole realm was the kingdom. In each city, those who met together to conduct the business of the city and of the realm in that place were the ecclesia. They were distinct terms that described distinct entities. We might say that in all the various cities, the various assemblies or ecclesias, if we can say that, were representative of the broader kingdom. Each one represented it in that place. No one in that culture would ever confuse the kingdom for the assembly. If you saw an assembly there in any given city, you wouldn't say that's the kingdom. No, that was the local manifestation of the kingdom, but the kingdom was much broader, obviously. And we should not confuse these terms or concepts either. There is the kingdom of God and there is the church of God. Now, our Lord did not coin a new term. Then he used a term that was already in common usage, but he created a new entity. described by that term. He calls this my church as distinct from any other assembly or gathering that existed. His called out. His assembly. And the calling out in view there is not the effectual call unto salvation, but it is the calling out from the general population to gather together to worship the Lord, to conduct the business of the kingdom of God. My called out, my assembly, Now, though the Lord used a familiar term in that culture, he gives it, I say, a special definition. My church, there are things unique to Christ's church. And I'll just mention a few here. His church is unique in who its Lord is. Its Lord is the Lord Jesus Christ. Unique certainly in its founder, in the person of Christ. His church is unique in its membership. Its membership is believers in Christ who have been baptized and who have covenanted together to worship and serve the Lord after the New Testament order. That, in fact, is about the simplest working definition of church that I can give. It is a gathering of baptized believers gathered for the purpose or covenanted together for the purpose of worshiping and serving the Lord according to the New Testament order. Other things unique about Christ's church, its officers are elders and deacons. Its purpose, which I just stated, is to glorify Christ. by worshiping Him and serving Him, fulfilling the Great Commission, observing the ordinances of baptism in the Lord's Supper, edifying of the body, one part of another. This is all part of Christ's assembly. His assembly is unique in its authority. Its authority doesn't come from any man. Its authority is from Christ Himself. He is the one to whom we answer. He is the one upon whom we depend. He is the one who brings us together according to his purpose and enables us to function in this way. His church is unique in its perpetuity. He says here, the gates of hell will not prevail against it. His institution will last and last and last until he comes again. How different that is from the Greek assembly or ecclesia. It long ago died. It died with the end of the Greek culture and its influence. In its place arose other forms of government and so on. We have a city council that may be a replacement for the Greek ecclesia. There is nothing that will replace Christ's ecclesia. He says the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Nowhere in the New Testament Does our Lord or the apostles speak of a building as a church? And I want to drill this into our thinking and at least somewhat into our vocabulary. Because we still talk about this building as a church. And I don't know that we'll ever be able to break that habit entirely. But we should understand that it is just a place where the church meets. Because the church is the people, not the building. If you're familiar with the Book of Acts, you may say, well, what about the place in chapter 19 where the term church is used? This is right where we were a moment ago in the incident in Ephesus, and the town clerk says, we would call him the mayor, he says to this crowd that has gathered, ye have brought hither these men which are neither robbers of churches nor yet blasphemers of your goddess. And in our English Bible, we have the phrase robbers of churches. Well, I can only say this seems to show the influence of the Anglican view of a church building upon the translators here because the word robbers of churches or the term robbers of churches is all one word in the original language and it is literally robbers of temples. It's the word temple or here on that is used here. So don't let that verse confuse you or trip you up. As we look at the term as it is used in the New Testament by our Lord and in the epistles and in the book of Revelation, we see that there is no mention of a church as a building. There is no denominational use of the word church as we hear frequently today the You know, the Nazarene Church or the Methodist Church, speaking of a denomination or a denominational church, there is no use of the term church in a regional sense. And we'll look at this a little more in detail in one passage, God willing, in another lesson. But today it's common to hear people talk about the church in America and its problems. Well, the term church is never used in that regional, vague way in the New Testament. In fact, the term church means a gathering of people. There is no such thing as a church that does not gather, or that is invisible, or that is universal. And again, we'll look at that in more detail, God willing, in future lessons. As far as earth and time are concerned, Christ's church is always a gathering and assembling of redeemed, baptized people, covenanted together to fulfill the order of the New Testament concerning the institution that our Lord established. Now, one other thing I want to mention here. There is no church in the Old Testament. And this may shock some people who assume otherwise, but from Genesis to Malachi, there is nothing comparable to the New Testament church. Old Testament Israel was a national ethnic religious culture. But we should not confuse that with the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, there is the question of Acts chapter 7 and verse 38, where the term church is used with reference to Israel in the wilderness, in the 40 years between the exodus from Egypt and the entrance into the land of Canaan. And it says concerning Moses, this is he, which was in the church in the wilderness with the angel, which spake to him in the Mount Sinai with our fathers and so on. Now for those 40 years, the nation was gathered as one traveling as one. when they would, you know, the repeated occasions when it says Moses spake unto the people. Well, the people are there listening and how they conducted that with such a large population is difficult to say. I'm not sure anyone can say for sure. But there was what was then called a congregation. The congregation in the wilderness, the congregation of the Lord. That term is used many, many times there in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. And again, for those interested in the language aspects of it, in the Septuagint the word congregation in those places is consistently translated ecclesia because the nation was gathered there in a way in which they were not before in Egypt nor after in the land of Canaan and so the term in a A non-technical way can be used to describe those 40 years in which they traveled together as one company, but that is, again, very distinct from the New Testament definition of a church. Today, Protestants love to speak of the Old Testament church, and they speak of it as if it is just assumed that everyone understands that and agrees with that. But they are using a term that should not be used. They are giving a definition to it that does not fit the biblical definition. They speak of an Old Testament church as if it existed from Moses, perhaps from Abraham, or perhaps even from Adam until the days of Christ. They have to have this Old Testament church, so-called, to fit their paradigm that they impose upon the scriptures of one covenant with various administrations in which there must be a continuation of the old covenant in the new because there is only one covenant, they say. And so to make things run smoothly and appear consistent and simple, we have this old Testament church and a new Testament church and That's where we disagree with them. The New Testament church is a new institution, unlike anything that existed in the Old Testament. Those who speak of an Old Testament church and their one covenant with various administrations use that to justify their sacral society. which involves unregenerate members, the children of believers, whether they are believers or not. The sacral society, to whatever extent they practice it, requires this superimposed view of an Old Testament church. But the Church of Jesus Christ is distinct to the New Testament, to the New Covenant economy. The coming of Christ marked a pivotal point as to covenants. There was an old covenant that gave way to the new. The new, we would say, replaced the old. And Galatians chapter 4 is very specific to point out that there are two covenants. Our very scripture is divided into Old Testament and New Testament for that reason. The new covenant that Christ established called for a new institution built by Christ, built on spiritual principles rather than ethnic, national, political, and religious principles. Well, let me close with this. The Church is God's institution for the New Testament economy. And there is no other institution that can lay claim to that place and that honor and that function. There is no other organization, ministry, group, association, etc. that Christ established on earth to do His work. He established his church wherever it is gathered in every locality to be the institution that does his work. And so we must do the Lord's work in the Lord's way. And the Lord's way is through his church. Unto him be glory in the church, in every place where it gathers. And may it be so even this day.