The Church in God’s Plan                                                                       by Howard Snyder

 (this article is presented as edited in Perspectives on the World Christian Movement; originally from The Community of the King)

 To be biblical we must see the Church and the gospel within the context of God’s cosmic plan. I believe that God is saving souls and preparing them for heaven, but I would never accept that as an adequate definition of the Church’s mission. It is much too narrow. It is not a biblical definition, for the Bible speaks of a divine master plan for the whole creation.

 Master of a Great Household

What is this cosmic plan? It is stated most concisely in the first three chapters of Ephesians, and it is here I will begin my biblical analysis. Two striking facts emerge from these chapters. First, God has a plan and purpose. Second, this plan extends to the whole cosmos.

Paul speaks of “the will of God” (1:1), “his pleasure and will” (1:5), “the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ” (1:9). Paul repeatedly says God “chose,” “appointed” and destined” us according to his will. Paul wished to speak of the Church as the result of, and within the context of, the plan and purpose of God.

Note especially Ephesians 1:10. The word sometimes translated “plan” is oikonomia, which comes from the word for “house” or “household.” It refers to the oversight of a household, or to the plan or arrangement for household management. The idea “is that of a great household of which God is the Master and which has a certain system of management wisely ordered by him.”[1] Here is an orderly, premeditated divine plan or design for salvation.[2] Paul’s figure of speech is particularly apt since he elsewhere refers to the Church as “God’s household,” oikeios (Eph. 2:19), and the same figure sometimes extends to the whole inhabited world. (Ecumenical comes from the same root.) Thus the idea of a cosmic plan is implicit in Paul’s wording here. Paul may even have had in mind Jesus’ parables of God as a householder who will settle accounts in the Kingdom of God (Mt. 13:27; 20:1,11; 21:33; Lk. 13:25; 14:21).

 Reconciliation: Not Just “Plan B”

But what is God’s master plan? Simply this: that God may glorify himself by uniting all things under Christ. “God’s plan is to unite and reconcile all things in Christ so that people can again serve their maker.”[3]

God’s plan is for the restoration of his creation, for overcoming the damage done to persons and nature through the Fall. God’s design to reconcile all things may seem merely to fulfill his original intention at creation. But this is to speak humanly, from our underside view of reality; we must not suppose that God’s cosmic plan for reconciliation is “Plan B,” a second-best, back-up plan that God thought up because he failed at creation. For God’s eternal plan predates the Fall and the creation; it existed in the mind of God “before the creation of the world” (Eph. 1:4).[4]

This plan includes not only the reconciliation of people to God, but the reconciliation of “all things in heaven and on earth” (Eph. 1:10). Or, as Paul puts it in Colossians 1:20, it is God’s intention through Christ “to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” Central to this plan is the reconciliation of persons to God through the blood of Jesus Christ. But the reconciliation won by Christ reaches to al the alienations that resulted from sin – alienation from ourselves, between people, and between humanity and the physical environment. As mind-boggling as the thought is, Scripture teaches that this reconciliation even includes the redemption of the physical universe from the effects of sin as everything is brought under its proper headship in Jesus Christ (Rom. 8:19-21). Or as the New International Version suggests in translating Ephesians 1:10, God’s purpose is “to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.”[5] The implication is stunning: under Christ’s Lordship everything is to be brought to a greater fullness than it experiences before the Fall.

Paul places our personal salvation in cosmic perspective. We are permitted no either/or here. No spiritual tunnel vision. The redemption of persons is the center of God’s plan, but it is not the circumference of that plan.

The Church in God’s Cosmic Plan

A remarkable phrase occurs in Ephesians 3:10. God’s cosmic plan, Paul says, is that “through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms.”[6]

Let us look closely at this passage:

In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ which was not made known to men in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets. This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise of Christ Jesus (3:4-6)

The mystery, now made known, is that Gentiles as well as Jews may share in God’s promised redemption. In fact Jew and Gentile are brought together into “one body.” Through Jesus Christ, as Paul had explained already, God has “made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility.” So all Christians are one body, “one new man.” This was “through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility” (Eph. 2:14-16).

Note the two dimensions here. Jewish and Gentile believers are reconciled both to God and to each other. They have joined in a reconciling relationship to Jesus that transcends and destroys their old hostility toward each other. No longer enemies, they are now brothers and sisters.

What then is the mystery of God’s plan? It is that in Christ, God acts so powerfully that He can overcome hatreds and heal hostilities. Jew and Gentile are “reconciled to God in one body.” The mystery is not merely that the gospel is preached to Gentiles; it is that through this preaching Gentile believers are now “heirs together” and “members of one body.”

God’s plan for the Church extends to the fullest extent of the cosmos:

His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord (10-11)

By God’s “manifold wisdom” the Church displays an early fullness of what Christ will accomplish at the conclusion of all the ages. The spectacle is to reach beyond the range of humanity, even to angelic realms. The Church is to be God’s display of Christ’s reconciling love, bringing Jew and Gentile together as brothers and sisters in the community of God’s people. But Jew and Gentile only? Was the miracle of the gospel exhausted by the reconciliation of Jew and Gentile in the first century A.D.? Certainly not! There is more to the mystery of God’s plan. The initial, historic reconciliation shows that God reconciles alienated persons and peoples to Himself through the blood of the cross. It started with the reconciliation of Jew and Gentile and extends to free and slave, man and woman, black and white, rich and poor (Col. 3:10-11; Gal. 3:28). It will ultimately extend to “every family on heaven and earth” (Eph. 3:15).

 The Biblical Vision of the Church

The Bible says the Church is nothing less than the Body of Christ. It is the Bride of Christ (Rev. 21:9), the flock of God (1 Pet. 5:2), the living temple of the Holy Spirit (Eph. 2:21-22). Virtually all biblical figures for the Church emphasize an essential, living, love relationship between Christ and the Church. This underscores the key role of the Church in God’s plan and reminds us that “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph. 5:25). If the Church is the body of Christ – the means of the head’s action in the world – then the Church is an indispensable part of the gospel, and ecclesiology is inseparable from soteriology. Therefore, to adopt what might be called an “anti-church stance” would be to dilute the very gospel itself and at the same time to demonstrate a misunderstanding of what the Bible means by “the Church.”

The Bible shows the Church in the midst of culture, struggling to be faithful but sometimes adulterated by unnatural alliances with paganism and Jewish legalism. In Scripture the earthly and heavenly sides of the Church fit together in one whole and do not leave us with two incompatible churches or with a split-level view of the Church. The Church is one; it is the one Body of Christ that now exists both on earth and “in the heavenly realms” (Eph. 1:3, 2:6, 3:10). This view of the Church is sharply relevant for the modern age for reasons which are basic to the biblical view of the Church.[7]

First, the Bible sees the Church in cosmic/historical perspective. The Church is the people of God which God has been forming and through which he has been acting down through history. In this sense the Church has roots that go back into the Old Testament, back even to the Fall. Its mission stretches forward into all remaining history and into eternity. This horizontal line is the historical dimension.

The cosmic dimension reminds us that our space-time world is really part of a larger, spiritual universe in which God reigns. The Church is the body given to Christ, the conquering Savior. God has chosen to place the Church with Christ as the very center of His plan to reconcile the world to himself (Eph. 1:20-23).

The Church’s mission, therefore is to glorify God by continuing in the world the works of the Kingdom which Jesus began (Matt. 5:16). This both justifies and demands the Church’s broader ministry “to preach good news to the poor… to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18-19).

Second, the Bible sees the Church in charismatic, rather than in institutional, terms. While the Church is, in a broad sense, an institution, it is more fundamentally a charismatic community. That is, it exists by the grace (charis) of God and is built up by the gifts of grace (charismata) bestowed by the Spirit. As seen biblically, it is not structured the same way a business corporation or university it, but is structured like the human body – on the basis of life. At its most basic level it is a community, not a hierarchy; an organism, not an organization (1 Cor. 12; Rom. 12:5-8; Eph. 4:1-16; Matt. 18:20; 1 Pet. 4:10-11).

Third, the Bible sees the Church as the community of God’s people. Here the cosmic and the charismatic are united, and we see the Church as both within the world and as transcending the world.

Since the Church is the people of God, it includes all God’s people in all times and in all places, as well as those who have now crossed the space-time boundary and live in the immediate presence of God. But the people of God must have a visible, local expression, and at the local level the Church is the community of the Holy Spirit.  As Samuel Escobar has said, “God calls those who become His people to be part of a community. So the new humanity that Christ is creating becomes visible in communities that have a quality of life that reflects Christ’s example.”[8]

The Church finds its identity in this unified, complementary rhythm of being a people and a community, both within a city or culture and within the larger worldwide context.

The biblical figures of body of Christ, bride of Christ, household, temple or vineyard of God, and so forth, give us the basic idea of the Church. Any contemporary definition must be in harmony with these figures or models. But these are metaphors and not definitions. I believe the most biblical definition is to say the Church is the community of God’s people. The two key elements here are the Church as a people, a new race or humanity, and the Church as a community or fellowship – the koinonia of the Holy Spirit.[9]

 The Community of God’s People

These twin concepts emphasize that the Church is, in the first place, people – not an institutional structure. They emphasize further that the Church is not mere collection of isolated individuals, but that it has a corporate or communal nature which is absolutely essential to its true being. And finally, these truths show that being a community and a people is a gift from God through the work of Jesus Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. It is not produced by human techniques or plans. The Church is constituted the people of God by the action of Jesus Christ, and this reality opens the door to the possibility of true and deep community. Here the figure of the body takes on added meaning, including both the fact of community and the fact of peoplehood.

This concept of peoplehood is firmly rooted in the Old Testament and underlines the objective fact of God’s acting throughout history to call and prepare “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God” (1 Pet. 2:9; compare Ex. 19:5-6). The Greek word for “people” is laos, from which comes the English word “laity.” This reminds us that the whole Church is a laity, a people. Here the emphasis is on the universality of the Church – God’s people scattered throughout the world in hundreds of specific denominations, movements and other structures. It is the inclusive, worldwide, corporate reality of the multitude of men and women who throughout history, have been reconciled to God through Jesus Christ. This fact celebrates the moving of God in history to constitute a pilgrim people and is especially related to the concept of the covenant. Seen in cosmic/historical perspective, the church is the people of God.

On the other hand, the Church is a community or fellowship, a koinonia. This emphasis is found more clearly in the New Testament and grows directly out of the experience of Pentecost. If peoplehood underlines the continuity of God’s plan from Old to New Testament, community calls attention to the “new covenant,” the “new wine,” the “new thing” God did in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the Spirit’s baptism at Pentecost. The emphasis here is on the locality of the Church in its intense, interactive common life. Seen as a charismatic organism, the Church is the community of the Holy Spirit.

The Church as community emphasizes the local, temporal life of the Church in a given cultural context. Here we come down from the ethereal heights to the nitty-gritty business of Christians living together, sharing a common life. Here also we discover the basic fact that true community is essential for effective witness. And here too, as a result, we face the problem of wineskins – the necessity of dealing with practical structures in order to permit and encourage true community.

It is critically important – especially in a worldwide, multicultural situation such as the Church faces today – to be clear that the essence of the Church is people, not organization; that it is community, not an institution. The great divide in contemporary thinking about the Church is located precisely here. Biblically, the Church is the community of God’s people, and this is a spiritual reality which is valid in every culture. But all ecclesiastical institutions – whether seminaries, denominational structures, mission boards, publishing houses or what have you – are not the Church. Rather, they are supportive institutions created to serve the Church in its life and mission.

They are culturally bound and can be sociologically understood and evaluated. But they are not themselves the Church. And when such institutions are confused with the Church, or seen as part of its essence, all kinds of unfortunate misunderstandings result, and the Church is bound to a particular, present cultural expression.

The Church is the Body of Christ, the community of the Holy Spirit, the people of God. It is the community of the King and the agent to the world of God’s plan for the reconciliation of all things. God’s agent of the Kingdom must not be considered just one means among many. For from the cross to eternity it remains true that “Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her to make her hold… and to present her to himself as radiant Church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish” (Eph 5:25-27).

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