The Invincibility of the Church: I Will Build My Church

I’ve been involved in a number of construction projects. There’s a lot of preparatory work that goes into such an endeavor. Yet despite all the planning, once it’s underway there are always unforeseen challenges. If those involved are agile enough, and knowledgable enough, the challenges can be responded to and the project can be brought to completion. From my experience, however, the finished product is never exactly as it was laid out on paper.  

Jesus’ states that he is building his church and gates of Hades will not prevail against it (Matthew 16:18). Now, when the one who made heaven and earth says that he is going to build something, we should have confidence that it will be built! But sometimes it feels, does it not, as if unforeseen challenges have arisen that threaten the project? Is it possible that Jesus didn’t know the troubles that would plague the church? After all, isn’t that the way all construction projects go? In the world, yes. In the Kingdom, no.

Unlike those who spend a great deal of time anticipating problems but never accounting for all of them, the one building his church knows the end from the beginning. Even when the church seems to be weak, unwanted, under threat, it has all been known from the before the foundation of the world. Consequently, even when it appears that the church is losing ground it is where Jesus knew it would be. There are no Plan B’s or work-arounds necessary for the maker of heaven and earth.

This should encourage us to persevere despite present challenges. He is creating living stones from every tongue, tribe, and nation to be part of his invincible building, making them one by one though the preaching of the gospel. Faithful stewards of the message strive to preserve the truth while seeking to make it known to “everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself” (Acts 2:39). And once fitted into the structure, the gospel continues its work of refining and honing each stone that has been chosen to a part of “a dwelling place for God by the Spirit” (Ephesians 2:22).

Jesus is building his church and it will be built — and all according to plan, down to the last detail.

The Invincibility of the Church: We Know the Truth

The invincibility of the church is assured for it is founded upon the truth. Truth will always triumph over falsehood for truth is of God.

One of the ways that the Bible speaks of truth is in relation to the faithfulness of God. He is true to his word; he upholds the covenant he has made with his people. This brings an ethical dimension into the concept of truth. That is, truth is more than factual statements. Though there are many factual statements in the Bible and the concept of truth as relating to what actually is, is illustrated by them, God as faithful moves truth beyond things that are, to the way things ought to be.

When God called creation into being and placed man in its midst, there was a way in which man was to relate to God and all that He had made. Man was defined by these relationships. The serpent, however, tripped up the man by deceiving him into thinking that he could live differently than how he was created to live. When man bought into the lie, he was undone. Sin and death became the new normal.

In the face of this seeming defeat, God, in his faithfulness, revealed his plan to triumph over the lie. Before the world was even formed, a covenant had been established by which God would make a people from fallen humanity. To accomplish this, God injected truth into the false environment created by that first lie. The Word made flesh, full of grace and truth, arrived on the scene and demonstrated what it means to live in truth, to be truly human. His was a truth-filled relationship with the Father. He lived and taught the truth for he was faithful to the revealed will of God, even to the point of death on a cross. And then, his death and subsequent resurrection proclaimed the truth that sinful human beings need to be redeemed and rescued from the slavery of sin and death. This was followed by the vindication of Jesus when, with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, he was shown to have returned to the very presence of God.

The final triumph of the church will be enjoyed by all who have settled their eternal hope on Christ, for he alone is truthful and to be trusted. On the Day, all false ideologies, pretensions to power, deceitful dealing and cruel conniving will be exposed. Only those whose deeds are righteous, who have, by the grace of God, pursued holiness through their union with the victorious Christ, will bask in the glorious, unmediated, unmitigated truth of existence. Such will be those who believed that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.

The Invincibility of the Church: Attack God's People? A Fool's Errand

It is common for those who notice such things, to say that we are living in a post-Christian culture. By this is meant that the church no longer holds the place of primacy as moral arbiter. In the West, the norms and constraints fostered by Christianity have been intentionally cast off and people are no longer stigmatized by falling afoul of Biblical morality. Emboldened by this development, many have not just turned from the church; they have turned on the church. No longer believing that God is relevant to their lives, they feel free to attack God’s people. This is the very mindset of the “fool” in Psalm 14: “The fool says in his heart, ‘’There is no God.’ They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none who does good . . . Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers who eat up my people as they eat bread and do not call upon the LORD?” No longer fearing God, the deniers go after those who confess him.

The psalm goes on to explain why such a strategy is a fool's errand. The Lord, as he looks down from heaven, sees exactly what is going on and will cause the “evildoers” to be “in great terror.” The reason why? “God is with the generation of the righteous.” To persecute God’s people is to persecute God (Acts 9:4), and to persecute God is foolish indeed — it’s not a battle that anyone can hope to win.

That being said, the church must find the courage to remain faithful in the midst of this societal shift. The moral framework of the West might be post-Christian, but God is never post-Christian. He is always for his people and they, and his purposes, will be vindicated on the last day. Additionally, we must not forsake our calling to be salt and light. Our neighbors might energetically strive to deny the reality of God, but he is unavoidable, inescapable, something which they must know (Romans 1:19, 20) or else they wouldn’t be working so hard to deny him. Given that reality, we must feel the same weight of obligation that Paul felt to make the gospel known (Romans 1:14). It is the gospel, the message entrusted to the church, that is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16).

Persecution of Christians is real. In the West it is increasingly taking the form of law suits, ridicule, marginalization. In many other parts of the world, the cost of following Jesus is much, much greater. However it manifests itself, the persecution of Christians is, again, a fool's errand, not just because the One who defends us is the maker of heaven and earth, but because the very ones who are being silenced are the ones who have the message of salvation. There is no hope apart from hearing and believing what the church has to say. 

May God be merciful to grant wisdom to those who deny him.