It is a Great Mystery, but I am Speaking about Christ and the Church
With these words in Ephesians 5, Paul tells us that Christ's relationship to the church is the relationship that marriage is supposed to reflect. The Lord gave us marriage so that we would learn something about the reality of Christ's love, commitment, and protection of us, his church. Broken as families and marriages are, they still inform us in an experiential way about what it means to be children of God, sons of God, and loved by Christ our bridegroom. The scriptural revelation about the gospel instructs us on how we should act as mothers, fathers, husbands, and wives, while love, acceptance, forgiveness, joy, and intimacy teach us experientially what is just a shadow of the fullness of the love of our Lord.
Reflecting on marriage may help us appreciate how we should act toward his bride, the church. I would like to reflect on the idea of trust. Few would dispute that a healthy marriage needs trust. Broken trust makes love difficult and causes pain and dysfunction in any marriage. Broken trust even makes a strictly working relationship untenable. Too many Christians have had the sad experience of being in a church that has lost trust among its members. I am amazed at the trust Paul had in Christ and his bride. “Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears. And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified” (Acts 20:31-32).
Paul goes on to say that he will never see them again and he commends them to God. "Now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace." Paul, as a church-planting missionary, spent differing amounts of time in the places he preached, but without exception his time was brief. Besides working for his own needs, his efforts to reach those chosen of God, and to establish, train, and organize them into churches were tireless. He describes his work as declaring the whole counsel of God, house to house and in public, and not failing to declare anything profitable. Additionally, he left men like Timothy and Titus to continue the work. But city after city Paul would teach tirelessly and then leave—return, visit, and write letters—but he leaves. He entrusts the bride of Christ to...Christ.
One might say there is a big difference between trusting the church and entrusting the church to God. Yet I do not think you can entrust the church to Christ without trusting the church. Try saying, "I trust Christ, but I don't trust that bride of his," or "I trust Christ, not that weak wife he bought with his blood," or "Jesus will take care of things, but don't trust his bride to do much right; she will let you down regularly." Loving Christ must mean loving his church, and loving and serving his church must mean trusting the church to do what Christ is doing.
Church history bears out the errors of even the true church of Christ without very much scrutiny. Our own experience in good churches has shown us they are full of sinful people like ourselves, people who make errors of doctrine, life, and judgment. That is, we sin grievously. In the same speech in Acts 20, Paul says, " wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock." Elsewhere, the book of Acts bears witness to the need for faithful Christians to stand up against errors of judgment and doctrine in the church. Paul describes one such situation in his letter to the Galatians when he writes, "But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned" (chapter 2 verse 11). Galatians itself is a letter written to correct doctrinal error. Yet Paul left these fledgling churches under the care of fledgling elders to make decisions that he was confident they were competent to deal with. Then he wrote letters and visited when they messed up. "I am astonished that you ... are turning to a different gospel" (Galatians 1:6).
I cannot figure out how Paul was able, in under two years, to accomplish so much in so many places—perhaps if the language was not a barrier, perhaps if education and access to scripture was not an issue, but even then, wow! He trusted the elders to lead, and he trusted the Lord to keep.
How often I find I cannot understand a cultural issue well enough to speak authoritatively on what the Scriptures say about it. I have to teach the scriptural principles and trust the elders of the church to make the hard decisions God will hold them accountable for. Sure, I have my opinions, but I must trust the church as far as possible. Often, I disagree with the pastoral handling of an issue. It is good to speak out, but then it is also good to trust the church to handle things well or poorly and learn, Lord willing.
Trust must even enter in on matters of translation and doctrine: you teach, you translate. Many words have no translational equivalent in a language that is new to the Scriptures. A new word can be developed or transliterated, but no one will understand it until the word and its scriptural meaning can become a part of the language or at least the church language. Think of the word atonement, for example, which was developed to translate the Bible into English, or the word shekinah, which was simply transliterated into English.
On the other hand, perhaps the language has a similar word for a concept like justification. We might quickly make use of that word only to find that the meaning of the word in the new language is similar but dangerously different. Maybe the judicial language of the local courtroom still involves some of the pagan rituals to declare someone righteous. Can you trust the local elders to bridge the language gap to explain these critical doctrines with new words or old words with new definitions? It may be years before you understand the language enough to know if the men you're teaching have developed orthodox ways of communicating to their people in the local tongue what you have tried to teach so carefully.
So, you work and you labor, teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training. And you pray, entrusting Christ's bride to Christ. And you trust the bride of Christ, loving the one Christ loves and gave his life for. You trust her to be competent and equipped with sufficient gifts to build the kingdom, shepherd the sheep, purge the leaven, and deal with wolves. And it is so hard to trust Christ's bride, because she is filled with sinful children of God who have been justified, and are slowly, slowly, slowly being sanctified in the Father’s good timing just like you and me. So, with fear and trepidation, we trust her, hoping for the best, because we must work with her and love her because Christ loves her and is working in, through, and for her.
Lucas has served as a pastor in the RPCNA since 2007 and he is currently serving in South Sudan with his wife Melissa and their five children. He trains pastors, gardens, farms, is known to give goats away, and plays soccer with his kids.