XVII THE FUTURE OF THE CHURCH AND THE CHURCHES "Unto Him be glory in the Church, by Christ Jesus, throughout all ages, world without end. Amen."-EPH. 3: 21. The Church has a past, present, future. The churches, representations. The future of The Church not identical with that of a church or the churches. The Church in the Wilderness. Transitional periods involving decay of the old. The Churches are mortal. National, local and secular elements. The North-African churches. The Oriental churches. The British churches. The Donatist. Montanism. The surviving catholic churches. The mortality of the Roman Catholic Church. It is secularized. It is national. Elements of clay in this image. Hostile forces at work in many nations. The Orthodox (Greek) Catholic Church. The Anglican Church. Not even the church of the Empire. The Lutheran Church. The Reformed Churches. The Baptist Church. The Presbyterian Church. Calvinism. No one church can become the exclusive church. The True Church not necessarily perfect. The Church interested in the churches. Are the churches failures? The widening breach between the churches and the age. The worth of The Church not staked on one church. The cultivation of character. The triumph of The Church on earth must wait till unity comes. Churches must agree. What the churches must be and do. Christ, the sacrificial saviour. XVII THE FUTURE OF THE CHURCH AND THE WHEN We speak of the future of The Church we must remember that The Church is the existence form of the Christian religion. The Church, as an entirety, has its existence in the past as well as in the present. The past of The Church is not extinct, but lives in the heavenly world. There is danger of confusion, if we use the phrases, the invisible and the visible church, because this leads to the idea that there is a visible church, which existing in a distinct and determined form is The True Church. It is this error which more than any other, has led to the identification of The Church with a church. The Church, past, present and future, is one. There can be but one Church since Jesus Christ, the one head of The Church can have but one body. The Church may, therefore, be spoken of as having an invisible part. Thus, in Hebrews (12: 23), we read that the "panegyric and ecclesia of the first-born, which are written in heaven" (the whole Church), has a part which is designated as "the spirits of the perfected righteous." Of the Whole Church, part are already perfected. Therefore, when we speak of the future of The Church we are referring to the manifestation of The Church, which is still in the stage of imperfection upon this earth. The Church, as we have seen, has its manifestation in the churches. The Whole Church is The Church of Jesus Christ since He is her only head and Redeemer. She is His bride. Of this Church Jesus spoke when He said: "Thine they were and Thou gavest them Me" (John 17:6). Concerning this Church, Jesus said: "On this rock I will build (not found, as Bengel well notes) My Church, and the gates of hades shall not prevail against it." By which is meant not merely that The Church is unconquerable by evil forces, but that all the power of darkness shall be unable to resist its triumphant march to victory. In this sense, the angel on the white horse, who went forth conquering and to conquer (Rev. 6: 2), symbolizes The Church. Without the final triumph of The Church, the triumph of Jesus Christ is meaningless. The glory and supremacy of The Church is not to be realized in the glory of any one at present existing church, since, as we have seen, there is no one church which is The Church. Nor does this supremacy pertain to any class of churches, whether called catholic or evangelic. Nor, further, does it mean that all the existing churches shall, as such, reach the glory form. The churches do not constitute The Church (as Hort |