Your belief about the universal church is...

[DocCas]

Originally posted by BrianT:
Thus, doesn't this definition of "the church" trip the pretrib view up a little bit? Can someone explain?

It is called "The Age of Grace," or "The Gospel Era." (Remember Mark 1:1?) And it is "the rapture of the saints" not "the rapture of the church." All the redeemed will be caught up, not just church members.

[ September 11, 2002, 01:05 PM: Message edited by: DocCas ]

 

[rlvaughn]

Sorry, Brian, I can't help you since I am not pre-trib. My doctrine of the church doesn't have to fit the pre-trib rapture theory.

 

[Deacon]

My church has been in the process of updating our constitution (informally) for about two years now. The section titled “What we believe about the Church”. reads as follows:

“All people who have placed their faith (confident trust) in Jesus Christ for salvation belong to the body of Christ. Spiritual unity is to be expressed among Christians by acceptance and love of one another across ethnic, cultural, socio-economic, national, generational, and gender lines. The local church is a community of like-minded believers who gather for worship, prayer, instruction, encouragement, mutual accountability, and community with each other. Through it, believers invest time, energy, and resources to fulfill the Great Commandment and the Great Commission – reaching lost people and growing them into fully devoted followers of Christ. (Hebrews 10:24,25; Acts 2:42-47).

 

[uhdum]

Originally posted by GrannyGumbo:
My opinion is that I don't believe there is a universal, invisible assembly, or church. I believe Jesus gave the 'Great Commission' to each church individually.

I think all of the churches have the privilege of working together with other churches in accomplishing the goal, but the responsibility is on each one.

A scriptural church, or New Testament church, is an assembly of called out, baptized believers. An understanding of the meaning of the word church eliminates the possibility of it being universal (or invisible).

A universal church idea opens the door to the ecumenical movement that will eventually pull all the false Christian religions into a one-world 'church'!

I've read that the term 'family of God' may be used to refer to all the saved of every age, but it never refers to the church of Jesus Christ.

The Bible at times though, so clearly states "one body" and "one bride." I believe that, as has been said, the "invisible church" is all believers.

Bless you, GrannyGumbo, you are a good, godly saint, but I have to disagree with you in that I think declaring that there is one body of believers does not necessarily lead to a "one-world church" or ecumenicalism. In one instance, you have people getting together regardless of doctrine and beliefs in ecumenicalism and making no distinction to those beliefs. That is what you and I find wrong. But the second instance is all believers who have been saved by grace being called "one body," "one bride," or even "one church." That's what I think is acceptable. You are absolutely right that the church is also local, however. I am a member of my local church and we all (hopefully) agree and worship in the same way (in my case Baptist). I cannot answer that for other denominations or even other Baptist churches. All I can know is my heart. But God died for the Catholic just as he did for me...He is the God of the saved Methodist just as He is my God.

Does that mean I'm going to join together with a bunch of different denominations without distinction in doctrine? No, I think Baptists are right But any person on earth who receives the true way of salvation (through grace) is a member of Christ's body.

God bless

[ September 13, 2002, 12:55 AM: Message edited by: uhdum ]