Jesus and the Church, Horse and Carriage

There are a substantial number of people in our world who claim to have a “good feeling” towards Jesus. They see Him as a good person who loved people and taught many good lessons. He went about doing good, being nice and kind. Their understanding of Jesus makes them feel good. It gives them a warm feeling inside. However, they are not interested in being aligned with other people trying to follow Jesus.

Many others will go even farther than this. They additionally perceive Jesus as a prophet. Some would even call Him a spiritual prophet connected to God in some way. They might say He provided many precepts by which they try to order their lives. But again, they are not interested in aligning themselves with followers of Jesus. They consider themselves good people who are nice and kind to others as if that is all that Jesus is really about.

There are also those who would go even farther, to the extent that they believe that Jesus is the Son of God. This would imply that they view His teachings not just as good moral ideas, but divinely inspired righteousness. While they see compliance with the teachings of Christ as being kind and respectful toward others, they see no reason to affiliate themselves with a group of people for whom fulfilling Christ’s desires is their life’s aim.

If a person finds themselves in agreement with any of these groups, they need to understand that they are operating on the basis of human wants and wishes. They are making up a “Jesus” (and a “God”) that are unconnected to anything found in the Bible. There is no other original source material that reveals God and everything about Him, including His Son, other than the Bible. If we want to know God, if we want to understand Him in any way that is real, we must turn to the Bible as our source of information.

In Matthew 16:18, Jesus promised to “build [His] church.” The Greek word, transliterated into English characters, that is interpreted “church” in that passage is “ekklessia,” which means a group of called out people. In other words, Jesus’ intention in coming to this earth (among other things) was to call, gather, and separate into a community, an association of people who were bonded to Him. We find the beginning of that “calling out” in Acts 2:37-47, when Peter uses the ‘keys of the kingdom” (see Matt. 16:19) to issue that call for the first time. In verses 44-47 we read, “And all that believed were together, and had all things common; and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all, as every man had need. And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.”

Jesus’ plan for His followers was, “if you’re going to follow Me, then follow me.” Or, as He put it in Matt. 16:24, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me.” In Luke 14:26-27, Jesus put it this way, “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.” Jesus’ call to discipleship, i.e., His call to followers was very serious business. The essence of it was, “come together as a united group who places following me above all else, work together, and be ready to face hardships and overcome persecution.” If one is not willing to take this approach, Jesus says he cannot be my disciple.

There is no room in the words of Christ for anyone having a good feeling toward Him because they see Him as a good person, or even as a prophet, who had some good teachings but not desiring to be aligned with Him or His people in any way. Nor is there any slack cut for one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God and a teacher of righteousness but who remains unaffiliated with others who wish to follow Christ.

People who subscribe to such ideas, are accepting a religion made up of wishes and totally disassociated with anything found in the Bible. Jesus says they cannot be His disciples. It is not difficult to understand. They can in no way be part of the Acts 2 group of people of whom it is said, “the Lord added to the church such as should be saved.” Those people in Acts 2, offered as examples to us, clearly had a deep appreciation for each other and the significance of the commitment they had made to each other as well as to God. They enjoyed each other’s presence and lived to help each other as they traveled life’s road.

Peter explains in 1 Peter 1:22, “Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently.” These disciples of Christ, Christians, had purified their souls by obeying the truth through the Spirit. For further enlightening on that concept study Romans 6, the whole chapter, carefully. Pertinent to our concern here is that this purification through obeying the truth through the Spirit led Christians to a sincere and genuine love of each other. This genuine love would by definition have to come from a pure heart and would thus be zealous, of great emotion, or, we might call it, deeply heartfelt. Imagine feeling this way about your brothers and sisters in Christ and being indifferent, at best, or negative, at worst, about associating and being aligned with them. Actually, it is unimaginable.

If we find this confusing (thus proving our desire to obfuscate, rather than to believe,) John clears away the (nonexistent) fog in 1 John 4. Earlier in the chapter John has discussed how the great love that God has for us has been demonstrated through the death of Jesus, who, on the cross, became the propitiation we owed for our sin. Then he says in vs 11, “Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.” No more should need to be said. We should love one another. But John says more in vs 20-21; “If a man say, I love God, and hate his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from Him, that he who loveth God love his brother also.”

John makes it clear. There is no loving God and not loving your fellow Christians. It simply does not and cannot happen. The people who think as those mentioned at the beginning of this article are inconsistent, hypocritical, and false all at the same time. Loving Jesus is not possible without loving His church, i.e. the “Acts 2” people. A Biblical metaphor makes this obvious.

When a boy and a girl fall in love, each wants and hopes very much that the other will love the people that are in their inner circle of loved people, their family and their friends. The imagery in Ephesians 5:22-33 is of the church as the bride of Christ. Christ is in the position of groom, and the church is His bride. Paul describes the relationship between bride and groom, and as he is about to draw a conclusion to his remarks he says in vs. 32, “This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.” The church is Christ’s bride and you can’t have an association with Christ unless you love His bride, the church. Moreover, you cannot be in the church unless you love the church.

There’s an old Frank Sinatra song that comes to mind. The lyrics are:

“Love and marriage, love and marriage

Go together like a horse and carriage

This I tell you, brother

You can’t have one without the other.”

I never would have dreamed that I would be using this song in a blog, but here I am. As Paul clearly says in Ephesians 5, the church and Jesus are a bride and groom. Love and marriage is a very real metaphor, straight from God’s word. As the song says, they go together like a horse and carriage. You can’t have one without the other. As God’s word says, you can’t love one without loving the other.