John Allen Hudson
Our Lord was introduced to the public scene by God, the Father, in conjunction with the baptism of John the Baptist. John’s work was one of reform, looking toward the introduction of Jesus. A man of singular qualities and strong convictions, He was enabled to draw from the crowded cities of Palestine great masses of the people to His haunts in the valley of the Jordan River. There was fulfilled in Him the statement of Emerson: “If a man write a better book, preach a better sermon, or build a better mousetrap than his fellow man, though he live in the wilderness, the world will make a beaten path to his door.” The Palestinian world made a path to the door of John, or, rather, to his rude pulpit on the banks of the Jordan. We are told that there went out unto him Jerusalem and all Judea and the regions round about, and were baptized in Jordan, confessing their sins. John laid upon them the demand that they bring forth fruits worthy of repentance. He preached the message that the kingdom of heaven was at hand.
For many long years, the people of Israel had been subject to one nation and then to another. They had not really enjoyed an independent national life since the destruction of their kingdom by Nebuchadnezzar. They were subject to the powers about them that rose and waned. From the Medo-Persian domination, they passed beneath the sway of the Seleucid dynasty in Syria and were trampled down by this latter power until the time of the rise of the Roman Empire. They were under this Roman empire when John began to preach. When he proclaimed the kingdom as being at hand, it pleased the fancy of very many in Palestine to believe that he alluded to a revival of the Judaic kingdom as it had been in the days of its glory. It is a plain thought in the New Testament to the careful student that this confusion about the kingdom continued during the public ministry of Christ. The Jews tried to interpret the message of John and of Jesus about the kingdom as alluding to the kingdom of old, the kingdom which their forefathers had known. Jesus preached the kingdom as being at hand, but He understood it differently. At least once during His ministry, there were those of His own nation who tried to take Him by force and to make Him a king. That was because they were thinking of an earthly kingdom, and they wanted to have relief from the oppressions of foreign rulers and to rid their country of the tramp of the Roman legions. Their sighing for liberty was very great. Jesus had the fullest sympathy, but He had in mind another kind of freedom, as we read in John 6. He also understood the kingdom to be spiritual. He said to them that the kingdom which He preached came not with observation. It did not come with pomp and power or with show and earthly glory. Earthly kingdoms come with observation. Jesus said that His kingdom would not be like that. The reason is that it is built upon the spirits and hearts of men and women. Jesus said: “Behold, the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21).
Jesus continued to use kingdom with a peculiar connotation, while many of His fellow countrymen, and even His disciples, tried to interpret the idea in the light of their national history and their then state of vassalage to the Roman Empire. Jesus preached that the kingdom was at hand during His personal ministry, the same as had John the Baptist. During the time of His public preaching, Jesus used church but twice. I here refer you to the first of these passages:
When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock [the rock of the confession of Jesus’ divine Sonship] I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven (Mat. 16:13-19).
Even in this famous passage, Jesus identified the church with the kingdom which He had been preaching as at hand. He made the church and the kingdom interchangeable, saying that the keys of the kingdom of heaven would apply to the church. Let it also be noted that the central divine truth of the Sonship of Jesus was the bedrock truth of the kingdom’s being established or of the church’s being set up. The name of Peter meant “a stone.” So, Jesus used petros, which is masculine. And then, taking off on the meaning of Peter’s name and applying the transferred thought of the great truth which he had confessed of the Sonship of Jesus, he said: “Upon this rock [not upon you] I will build my church.” The word for rock in the second instance was petra, feminine gender. So, making a play on Peter’s name and transferring the thought of the grand confession throughout, Jesus arrived at the conclusion of building His church, which would be done, because of His divine Sonship, despite all opposition, even the gates of hell. And there had been much opposition. The Jewish leaders were dead set against Him. They had reported him everything else, being willing to concede that He was a prophet. His divinity they would not allow, but it was never‐ theless true, and the mission of Jesus would be fulfilled despite them and in spite of the gates of hell. That mission was to call out of the world the people whom God would save. Church means the “called out,” from the verb kaleo, which means “to call,” and the prefix ex, which means “out of ” or “from.” So, Jesus would call out His people, would establish them in spite of all opposition.
Note the language again: “I will build my church.” Now, whose was it to be? Christ’s church, of course. He would do the calling out, and He would do the cleansing by His own precious blood, which would take away the sins of those whom He called by the Gospel. This was no mere sectarian view of the redeemed. He meant the saved of all generations from the time He should begin the calling until the end of the world. In defining the term from which we get the expression “will build,” Dr. Thayer says that it means the building of the church from the foundation to the superstructure, from the first work until the last soul is called and saved by Christ. The church of Christ as He used the term here is big enough and broad enough to save all mankind who will respond to His invitation. There is nothing narrow or mean about it. It is the church of the Lord Jesus Christ and cannot successfully be claimed by anybody on earth who would sectarianize it and reduce it to any bounds less than to comprehend all the saved. I believe in this church universal, this church of the Lord Jesus Christ, which He purchased with His own blood.
Concerning this institution, Paul said that it is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone and that it is built together for a habitation of God through the Spirit (Eph. 2:20-22). It is God’s house; it is God’s building. Again, he said: “But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15). Again, Paul said to the elders of the church at Ephesus: “Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood” (Acts 20:28).
Since in Scripture the church is the one which Jesus said He would build, it is His in fact; and since it is also called the “church of God” or the “church of the Lord,” only such designations as are given it in Scripture ought to be used. It is, from my point of view, very unfortunate that the Christian world (so-called) should have fallen into any confusion at all about this grand and glorious institution which was established upon the divine Sonship of Jesus and for the salvation of all who would accede to the demands of Jesus by the call of the Gospel. Now, it was not possible for the enemies of Jesus to prevent His building it, and it certainly is wrong for the would-be friends of Jesus to try to sectarianize it and to confuse the world about it. Let us come all the way back to the Bible and call divine things by divine names and no other. Let us unite upon the grand claims of the Gospel concerning the church universal, and yield obedience only to the great head of the church, Jesus Christ, our Lord. That is the plea which I make. Speaking of the great power which saves us, Paul said:
Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all (Eph. 1:20-23).
So, Jesus is the head of the church. It is His body. He is the Savior of the body, Paul tells us in Ephesians 5.
I am a firm believer that the church of the Lord Jesus Christ is the greatest institution in the world. Someone has called it God’s eternal church. There is ground for that belief in this passage: “Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end” (3:21). Kingdoms rise and wane, but the glorious church of God goes on down through the ages. Ideologies flourish, and nations are baptized in blood in support of them, and then they perish, but the glorious church of Christ goes on to heal and to save.
