Church and church

In common, mankind lives in nature’s context.  It is in the context of mortality, but there is a second context of immortality.  Mortality’s life is ours by physical birth: immortality’s by choice (faith).  For those persons following the affirmative choice for immortality (identified in the New Testament as Hope), mortality becomes nature’s womb period for immortal life, gained in spiritual birth (adoption).  (Romans 8:23)  The explanation is addressed in Scripture (Romans 8).  The theme was the center of conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus.  (John 3)  We may assume that Nicodemus accepted the meaning of Christ, as found in his later effort to gain a fair trial for Jesus, and his claim for the body of Jesus after the crucifixion.  He was prepared to offer dignity in appropriate treatment for the mangled body – perhaps rescuing it from the potter’s field purchased by the thirty pieces of silver returned by Judas.  The Apostle John appears to have kept in mind something of a record of Nicodemus’ activity.  (John 3; 7:50; 19:39)  The presumption for Nicodemus is affirmative: for Judas negative.

God in all factors is superior to mankind, and is the creator of mankind.  He does not abandon that which originated from him, even when that creation chooses to be prodigal from him.  It is not necessary, that he reveal himself in scope in greater revelation than is needed for the benefit of his creation.  Even that revelation is not just on human needs, but on the nature of God.  In God’s love (demanding empathy), holiness (demanding right), omnipotence (demanding problem-solving); omniscience (demanding understanding to wisdom), and omnipresence (demanding attention to all factors related to his creative acts) – God is interested and involved in the physical nature he created, and that includes especially the crowning act in our system, which is mankind.   His purpose (a purpose never rescinded) appears to have been to create persons (beings superior to animals) with characteristics reflective, analogical to his own.  That includes freedom as well as love, reflective thought, and many other factors.  Freedom, like all factors in his creative gestures, must not presume on his prerogatives.  He cannot violate himself.  (2 Timothy 2:12-13)

To be in Christ is to be in the Church (spiritual).  The Church is made up of individuals whose penitence separates them from the context of the former (nature) and admits them to the new (spiritual) – and that while they continue to occupy themselves in nature.  The spiritual experience does not begin at death for these persons but becomes a lively present experience fulfilled in its access after the physical is ended.  During the physical (nature) the Christian is assured of the spiritual, verified in the growth of the faith context in what the Christian believes and does.  At Pentecost the Church (spiritual) was given a miraculous formation in the institution of the church (natural) so to make practical the life of the church.  The books of Acts beginning in Chapter Two comprises the story of the organization of the church to reflect the meaning for the Church, for the cultivation of spiritual growth in those adopted into the Kingdom of God, and to advance the last commandment of Christ in nature to communicate the redemptive gospel of Christ to the world.  The organizational church is influenced by the two contexts – natural and spiritual.  The Church is conceived only in the spiritual context: the church is formed to join those who will believe beyond the world of nature of which they are a factor to the spiritual where they become a factor.  That assertion is magnificently summarized in 1 Peter 2:1-10.  The Church, according to the Apostle, is formed from living stones in the Kingdom of God making up a holy priesthood special to God.  The church, as an institution, is comprised of those who in the natural context are admitted to membership, a membership that may be made up of persons of both spiritual and natural interests, even for some to the point of violating the ideals of both contexts.  The wheat (the right) and the tares (the wrong) exist and compete together.  The matter will be sifted of God for final denouement. (Matthew 13:25-40)  God calls upon us to accept the dichotomy for our balance and moderation of life – Revelation 22:11.  We need to understand contexts.