What is the church? Is it really all that important? If you ask evangelical Christians in America, you will get a variety of responses. In one survey, when evangelicals were asked whether or not every Christian has an obligation to join a local church, thirty-six percent of the respondents said, “Yes,” and fifty-six percent said, “No.” In another survey, a similar fifty-six percent agreed that worshiping alone or with one’s family is a valid substitute for regularly attending the worship of the church. Many professing Christians see the church as a good but non-essential part of the Christian life. The church is an aid to my personal relationship with Jesus, but my participation in the church has little to no bearing on my relationship with God and eternal destiny.
Paul disagrees.
While expressing his gratitude for the Colossian church’s faithfulness and praying for their wisdom, Paul breaks out in song in Colossians 1:15-20 describing the Person and work of Jesus Christ as the Creator. This is not a superficial emotional reaction that has no bearing on the Colossian situation. Unbelieving Jews (I take it) are trying to convince the Colossians that the one true God who created heaven and earth and chose Israel to be his people must be worshiped at the Temple in Jerusalem according to the Law of Moses. Because the Jews have a historical pedigree along with a standing Temple at that time, you can imagine how tempting that might be to people who are staking on their eternal lives on what happened within the last thirty years.
Paul aims to demonstrate to the Colossians that the God of Israel, the one true God who created heaven and earth, is Jesus. He is the Creator. In 1:15-17, Jesus is described as the one in whom, through whom, and for whom all things were created, whether in heaven or on the earth. He is the God of creation and, therefore, supreme over all. He is the one who is in the beginning before all things, and in him all things hold together.
Then, in a somewhat jarring turn, Paul says, “And he is the head of the body, the church….” How does the church fit into this poetic flow of thought? Is Paul saying, “The cosmic Christ has reduced his sovereignty over all creation to sovereignty over the church”? Hardly. There is no reduction in the scope of Jesus’ authority. He is still the cosmic Christ. Paul speaks here of the nature of the church. The church is the new creation, the new heavens and the new earth. Jesus embodied the entire cosmic order in his person, took it to death, and resurrected it in his body, reconciling the entire created order to himself (1:20). The church is his body, buried with him in baptism unto death and raised with him. Just as Jesus’ personal body embodied the entire creation, so his body, the church, embodies the entire creation. The church is the new creation, the regeneration (Mt 19:28), the new heavens and the new earth.
Since the fall of man, creation in Adam was corrupted by sin, under the curse, and frustrated because it couldn’t reach its God-intended purpose (Rom 8:20). God’s promise of salvation has always been the deliverance of the entire creation … not deliverance from creation, but the deliverance of creation. The new creation is God’s promised salvation.
The church, as the resurrected body of Christ, is this new creation. For the Colossians to revert to the Temple in Jerusalem is to move back into the old creation under the sin and curse. Salvation is found in Christ. To be in the church is to be in God’s new creation. The Colossians need nothing else. They are complete in Christ (2:10).
Modern American Christians need a good dose of this reality as well. The church, even with all of her imperfections, is God’s new creation, continually being formed and filled by the Spirit until we reach maturity (see Eph 4:11-16). The church is not God’s side hustle while he saves the world. The church is the means through which God saves the world. The church is not a non-essential aid to your personal relationship with Jesus. You have a personal relationship with Jesus in the church. Not being in the church means that you are cut off from Christ’s body, and it is in the body of Christ that you have salvation. This church is not an invisible reality, a spiritual ether. The church is the people of God who have been baptized and regularly gather around the preached Word and the Lord’s Table. The church is that visible reality in which you submit to a pastor and elders who know you (see Heb 13:17). To be a part of this visible reality that is the church is to be a part of God’s new creation outside of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation (Westminster Confession of Faith, 25:2). The church may have many aids in parachurch organizations, but there is no replacement for the church.
Is the church important? It’s more than important. It’s more than a priority. The church is the new creation.
