A STUDY OF THE ORIGINS AND MEANING OF THE WORD CHURCH AS USED IN SCRIPTURE:
The word “church,” which is derived from κυριακός, kuriakós, “of or belonging to the Lord,” represents in the English Versions of the Bible of the New Testament the Greek word ἐκκλησία, ekklēsı́a; Latin, ecclesia. It is with the signification of this word ekklēsia as it meets us in the New Testament, and with the nature of the society which the word is there used to describe, that the present article is concerned.
I. Pre-Christian History of the Term
Although ekklēsia soon became a distinctively Christian word, it has its own pre-Christian history; and to those, whether Jews or Greeks, who first heard it applied to the Christian society it would come with suggestions of familiar things. Throughout the Greek world and right down to New Testament times (compare Acts 19:39), ekklēsia was the designation of the regular assembly of the whole body of citizens in a free city-state, “called out” (Greek ek, “out,” and kaleı́n, “to call”) by the herald for the discussion and decision of public business.
The Septuagint translators, again, had used the word to render the Hebrew ḳāhāl, which in the Old Testament denotes the “congregation” or community of Israel, especially in its religious aspect as the people of God. In this Old Testament sense we find ekklēsia employed by Stephen in the Book of Acts, where he describes Moses as “he that was in the church (the Revised Version, margin “congregation”) in the wilderness” (Acts 7:38).
The word thus came into Christian history with associations alike for the Greek and the Jew. To the Greek it would suggest a self-governing democratic society; to the Jew a theocratic society whose members were the subjects of the Heavenly King. The pre-Christian history of the word had a direct bearing upon its Christian meaning, for the ekklēsia of the New Testament is a “theocratic democracy” (Lindsay, Church and Ministry in the Early Centuries, 4), a society of those who are free, but are always conscious that their freedom springs from obedience to their King.
II. Its Adoption by Jesus
According to Matt 16:18 the name ekklēsia was first applied to the Christian society by Jesus Himself, the occasion being that of His benediction of Peter at Caesarea Philippi. The authenticity of the utterance has been called in question by certain critics, but on grounds that have no textual support and are made up of quite arbitrary presuppositions as to the composition of the First Gospel.
It is true that Jesus had hitherto described the society He came to found as the “kingdom of God” or the “kingdom of heaven,” a designation which had its roots in Old Testament teaching and which the Messianic expectations of Israel had already made familiar. But now when it was clear that He was to be rejected by the Jewish people (compare Matt 16:21), and that His society must move on independent lines of its own, it was natural that He should employ a new name for this new body which He was about to create, and thus should say to Peter, on the ground of the apostle's believing confession, “Upon this rock I will build my church.”
The adoption of this name, however, did not imply any abandonment of the ideas suggested by the conception of the kingdom. In this very passage (Matt 16:19) “the kingdom of heaven” is employed in a manner which, if it does not make the two expressions church and kingdom perfectly synonymous, at least compels us to regard them as closely correlative and as capable of translation into each other's terms. And the comparative disuse by the apostolic writers of the name “kingdom,” together with their emphasis on the church, so far from showing that Christ's disciples had failed to understand His doctrine of the kingdom, and had substituted for it the more formal notion of the church, only shows that they had followed their Master's guidance in substituting for a name and a conception that were peculiarly Jewish, another name whose associations would enable them to commend their message more readily to the world at large.
III. Its Use in the New Testament
1. In the Gospels
Apart from the passage just referred to, the word ekklēsia occurs in the Gospels on one other occasion only (Matt 18:17). Here, moreover, it may be questioned whether Our Lord is referring to the Christian church, or to Jewish congregations commonly known as synagogues (see the Revised Version, margin) The latter view is more in keeping with the situation, but the promise immediately given to the disciples of a power to bind and loose (Matt 18:18) and the assurance “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matt 18:20) are evidently meant for the people of Christ. If, as is probable, the ekklesia of Matt 18:17 is the Christian ekklesia of which Christ had already spoken to Peter, the words show that He conceived of the church as a society possessing powers of self-government, in which questions of discipline were to be decided by the collective judgment of the members.
2. In Acts
In Acts the ekklēsia has come to be the regular designation for the society of Christian believers, but is employed in two distinct senses. First in a local sense, to denote the body of Christians in a particular place or district, as in Jerusalem (Acts 5:11; Acts 8:1), in Antioch (Acts 13:1; Acts 15:22), in Caesarea (Acts 18:22) - a usage which reappears in the Apocalypse in the letters to the Seven Churches. Then in a wider and what may be called a universal sense, to denote the sum total of existing local churches (Acts 9:31 the Revised Version (British and American)), which are Thus regarded as forming one body.
3. In the Pauline Epistles
In the Pauline Epistles both of these usages are frequent. Thus the apostle writes of “the church of the Thessalonians” (1Thess 1:1), “the church of God which is at Corinth” (1Cor 1:2; 2Cor 1:1). Indeed he localizes and particularizes the word yet further by applying it to a single Christian household or to little groups of believers who were accustomed to assemble in private houses for worship and fellowship (Rom 16:5; 1Cor 16:19; Col 4:15; Phm 1:2) - an employment of the word which recalls the saying of Jesus in Matt 18:20. The universal use, again, may be illustrated by the contrast he draws between Jews and Greeks on the one hand and the church of God on the other (1Cor 10:32), and by the declaration that God has set in the church apostles, prophets, and teachers (1Cor 12:28).
But Paul in his later epistles has another use of ekklēsia peculiar to himself, which may be described as the ideal use. The church, now, is the body of which Christ is the head (Eph 1:22 ; Col 1:18, Col 1:24). It is the medium through which God's manifold wisdom and eternal purpose are to be made known not only to all men, but to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places (Eph 3:9,10,11). It is the bride of whom He is the heavenly Bridegroom, the bride for whom in His love He gave Himself up, that He might cleanse and sanctify her and might present her to Himself a glorious church, a church without blemish, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing (Eph 5:25). This church clearly is not the actual church as we know it on earth, with its divisions, its blemishes, its shortcomings in faith and love and obedience. It is the holy and catholic church that is to be when the Bridegroom has completed the process of lustration, having fully “cleansed it by the washing of water with the word.”
It is the ideal which the actual church must keep before it and strive after, the ideal up to which it shall finally be guided by that Divine in-working power which is able to conform the body to the head, to make the bride worthy of the Bridegroom, so that God may receive in the church the glory that is His (Eph 3:21).
[Edited from the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia]
The word “church,” which is derived from κυριακός, kuriakós, “of or belonging to the Lord,” represents in the English Versions of the Bible of the New Testament the Greek word ἐκκλησία, ekklēsı́a; Latin, ecclesia. It is with the signification of this word ekklēsia as it meets us in the New Testament, and with the nature of the society which the word is there used to describe, that the present article is concerned.
I. Pre-Christian History of the Term
Although ekklēsia soon became a distinctively Christian word, it has its own pre-Christian history; and to those, whether Jews or Greeks, who first heard it applied to the Christian society it would come with suggestions of familiar things. Throughout the Greek world and right down to New Testament times (compare Acts 19:39), ekklēsia was the designation of the regular assembly of the whole body of citizens in a free city-state, “called out” (Greek ek, “out,” and kaleı́n, “to call”) by the herald for the discussion and decision of public business.
The Septuagint translators, again, had used the word to render the Hebrew ḳāhāl, which in the Old Testament denotes the “congregation” or community of Israel, especially in its religious aspect as the people of God. In this Old Testament sense we find ekklēsia employed by Stephen in the Book of Acts, where he describes Moses as “he that was in the church (the Revised Version, margin “congregation”) in the wilderness” (Acts 7:38).
The word thus came into Christian history with associations alike for the Greek and the Jew. To the Greek it would suggest a self-governing democratic society; to the Jew a theocratic society whose members were the subjects of the Heavenly King. The pre-Christian history of the word had a direct bearing upon its Christian meaning, for the ekklēsia of the New Testament is a “theocratic democracy” (Lindsay, Church and Ministry in the Early Centuries, 4), a society of those who are free, but are always conscious that their freedom springs from obedience to their King.
II. Its Adoption by Jesus
According to Matt 16:18 the name ekklēsia was first applied to the Christian society by Jesus Himself, the occasion being that of His benediction of Peter at Caesarea Philippi. The authenticity of the utterance has been called in question by certain critics, but on grounds that have no textual support and are made up of quite arbitrary presuppositions as to the composition of the First Gospel.
It is true that Jesus had hitherto described the society He came to found as the “kingdom of God” or the “kingdom of heaven,” a designation which had its roots in Old Testament teaching and which the Messianic expectations of Israel had already made familiar. But now when it was clear that He was to be rejected by the Jewish people (compare Matt 16:21), and that His society must move on independent lines of its own, it was natural that He should employ a new name for this new body which He was about to create, and thus should say to Peter, on the ground of the apostle's believing confession, “Upon this rock I will build my church.”
The adoption of this name, however, did not imply any abandonment of the ideas suggested by the conception of the kingdom. In this very passage (Matt 16:19) “the kingdom of heaven” is employed in a manner which, if it does not make the two expressions church and kingdom perfectly synonymous, at least compels us to regard them as closely correlative and as capable of translation into each other's terms. And the comparative disuse by the apostolic writers of the name “kingdom,” together with their emphasis on the church, so far from showing that Christ's disciples had failed to understand His doctrine of the kingdom, and had substituted for it the more formal notion of the church, only shows that they had followed their Master's guidance in substituting for a name and a conception that were peculiarly Jewish, another name whose associations would enable them to commend their message more readily to the world at large.
III. Its Use in the New Testament
1. In the Gospels
Apart from the passage just referred to, the word ekklēsia occurs in the Gospels on one other occasion only (Matt 18:17). Here, moreover, it may be questioned whether Our Lord is referring to the Christian church, or to Jewish congregations commonly known as synagogues (see the Revised Version, margin) The latter view is more in keeping with the situation, but the promise immediately given to the disciples of a power to bind and loose (Matt 18:18) and the assurance “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matt 18:20) are evidently meant for the people of Christ. If, as is probable, the ekklesia of Matt 18:17 is the Christian ekklesia of which Christ had already spoken to Peter, the words show that He conceived of the church as a society possessing powers of self-government, in which questions of discipline were to be decided by the collective judgment of the members.
2. In Acts
In Acts the ekklēsia has come to be the regular designation for the society of Christian believers, but is employed in two distinct senses. First in a local sense, to denote the body of Christians in a particular place or district, as in Jerusalem (Acts 5:11; Acts 8:1), in Antioch (Acts 13:1; Acts 15:22), in Caesarea (Acts 18:22) - a usage which reappears in the Apocalypse in the letters to the Seven Churches. Then in a wider and what may be called a universal sense, to denote the sum total of existing local churches (Acts 9:31 the Revised Version (British and American)), which are Thus regarded as forming one body.
3. In the Pauline Epistles
In the Pauline Epistles both of these usages are frequent. Thus the apostle writes of “the church of the Thessalonians” (1Thess 1:1), “the church of God which is at Corinth” (1Cor 1:2; 2Cor 1:1). Indeed he localizes and particularizes the word yet further by applying it to a single Christian household or to little groups of believers who were accustomed to assemble in private houses for worship and fellowship (Rom 16:5; 1Cor 16:19; Col 4:15; Phm 1:2) - an employment of the word which recalls the saying of Jesus in Matt 18:20. The universal use, again, may be illustrated by the contrast he draws between Jews and Greeks on the one hand and the church of God on the other (1Cor 10:32), and by the declaration that God has set in the church apostles, prophets, and teachers (1Cor 12:28).
But Paul in his later epistles has another use of ekklēsia peculiar to himself, which may be described as the ideal use. The church, now, is the body of which Christ is the head (Eph 1:22 ; Col 1:18, Col 1:24). It is the medium through which God's manifold wisdom and eternal purpose are to be made known not only to all men, but to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places (Eph 3:9,10,11). It is the bride of whom He is the heavenly Bridegroom, the bride for whom in His love He gave Himself up, that He might cleanse and sanctify her and might present her to Himself a glorious church, a church without blemish, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing (Eph 5:25). This church clearly is not the actual church as we know it on earth, with its divisions, its blemishes, its shortcomings in faith and love and obedience. It is the holy and catholic church that is to be when the Bridegroom has completed the process of lustration, having fully “cleansed it by the washing of water with the word.”
It is the ideal which the actual church must keep before it and strive after, the ideal up to which it shall finally be guided by that Divine in-working power which is able to conform the body to the head, to make the bride worthy of the Bridegroom, so that God may receive in the church the glory that is His (Eph 3:21).
[Edited from the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia]
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