Seeing the Invisible Church

The 'invisible Church' is the Church as God sees it, the united body of believers which stretches beyond all boundaries of class, race, nationality, gender, denomination because we are all united in the person of Christ.

And yet when we look around today the one true Church, united in the body of Jesus, lies in tatters- divided into more than thirty thousand separate denominations. We have perverted the wonderful image of a united church defined by a shared love of Christ and turned it into a collection of organisations characterised by an idolatrous love of doctrine.

By this I mean when our zeal for right doctrine (which, of course, is a wonderful thing), leads us to forget that we are called first to “love our neighbour as ourselves”. It is idolatry if we place a desire for knowledge about God in front of knowing and obeying God. We were taught that it is love that is to define the Christian's life and that it is the love of one another that will mark us out as different in the world (John 13:35). If we love a brother in Christ then we should be able to look to what unites us, ignoring that which divides us. If we only love those who agree with us, what credit is it to us? Jesus says as much in Luke 6:32- “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them”; on the contrary, we are called to “walk in love as Christ loved us”(Eph 5:2). If our desire for correctness blinds us to our primary calling- to love each other, I think there is the very real possibility that we may end up be wrong in our hearts while being right in our doctrine.

This blog, though, is not designed to criticise the global church as it stands today but to encourage us to look beyond the labels we place on people and the signs which stand in front of churches to see, within them all, the invisible Church, the way God sees it.

We do not follow Appollos, or Paul, Peter or Pope Benedict, Luther or Calvin, John Piper, J.I. Packer, Rob Bell, Mark Driscoll or anyone else we care to mention. We follow Christ. When we do that rightly we will begin to view our brothers and sisters in the Church around us differently. When we realise that what hurts one part of the body, hurts the whole (see 1 Cor 12:26), and that Jesus loves each and every individual in the Church so much that he was willing to die for them, that shouldn't leave us unchanged.

The Church is not a building or an organisation; but the united body of believers in Christ. This is the so called invisible church. We should strive to make the invisible, visible. Because the love we have for one another stands as the ultimate testimony about what Christ has done in this world. This church is more permanent and more beautiful than bricks and mortar could ever be- so let's start showing it to the world.

“By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John13:35)

Too good to be true?

Jesus came to preach the good news. That is the literal meaning of 'gospel' and I, for one, forget this far too often. We speak about "the gospel of Matthew" and think of it as just the story of Jesus' life when it is so much more. It is good news, in fact it is more than that. If true, the message of Jesus is the best news that has ever been reported in the history of humanity.


But, what is the gospel? The good news is summed up beautifully in the famous words of John 3:16-17 and it is far better than I could ever hope to do!
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."


I know that I forget this far too often. The message of Christianity is one of salvation, it is always looking forward to the eternal life that will one day be enjoyed. That is the promise and the focus- not the relationship we can have now, but the perfection of a future spent with God. The picture of heaven is fleshed out in many places in the New Testament but the description of Revelation 21:4 that God "will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away" is certainly a wonderful image and fantastic good news, but is it 'too good to be true'?


That was the accusation made by this question which I received having spoken on the end of the world last Sunday and repeated here in full: 


We all know the saying "If it sounds too good to be true, it is." Why do Christians believe that heaven and the end of the world is exempt from this rule that in every other area of life consistently proves itself to be true? 


This really got me thinking but I think the reason we don't (and shouldn't) simply dismiss heaven as wishful thinking is because actually it so directly matches the internal picture we have of how the world 'should' be. Every time we react to suffering by saying 'that isn't fair', or 'it shouldn't be like this' we are longing for this Revelation 21 version of the world. When we see the wreckage of a natural disaster we don't say "oh well, those people weren't well adapted enough for their environment", on the contrary we are grieved as we watch their sufferings. We have a sense that this world isn't as it should be and the Bible tells us that, actually, we're right. We were made to live in the paradise of Eden and will ultimately be returned to a world which is no longer marred by human sin.


But many of us still cling to this life. We care so much about what car we drive, what job we have, what house we live in. We forget the promise of heaven, of an eternity spent in a perfect relationship with God, in a world without pain or suffering in everlasting life. We forget that the sufferings of this world are but a drop in the ocean compared to the future glory of heaven. Why do we continue to lie awake worrying about the small things of this life when we know that the big picture is so vastly different?


We've heard people talk about heaven thousands of times. But when was the last time we stopped and actually thought about the implications in our own lives? Because this is why Jesus came to this world, to initiate His kingdom and to provide us a way back to Him. And if we believe that Jesus rose from the dead, then we must believe that we who know Him will follow Him into eternal life. And this should alter our attitude to our lives here on Earth which are just so so short. Not one person wishes they had spent more time at the office on their death beds. Similarly, no Christian will wish they had spent less time serving God in this life.


But if we turn our attention back to heaven then we see that the Bible goes even further than the promise of eternal life. Looking to 2 Tim 2:11-12: 
"If we have died with him, we will also live with him;
if we endure, we will also reign with him" 

It is not just that we are raised to eternal life with Christ but we are rulers with him. We are God's children "and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ"(Rom 8:17).  Stop and think about this for a moment. Christ's sacrifice didn't merely get you into heaven, it turned you into God's beloved child, on an equal footing with Jesus. If that doesn't make your head spin, I don't know what will because I am clearly nothing like Jesus, my actions don't even come close to resembling his and yet I will share in the ultimate reward by the Grace of God. 

So, yes, it all does sound too good to be true. But then, would you expect any thing less from an all loving, all powerful God? Heaven is not the best thing the human mind could invent, but the greatest blessing that God could bestow.

To die is gain.

Iranian pastor Youcef Nadarkhani sits on death row today having been found guilty of apostasy and evangelising Muslims. He is a husband,father to two boys and leader of a network of house churches. He has been imprisoned for two years and has been given the three opportunities to recant his Christianity as required under Iranian law. He has refused to do so each time.


My heart truly goes out to his family, but whilst I deplore the actions of the Iranian courts, the breach of my brother's human rights and fully understand the outcry from both political and religious communities internationally, this is not the matter I wish to address. While I do remember him in my prayers every night, it is not for his release I ask- God will act in that way if it is His will- but rather, I pray that Pastor Nadarkhani will continue to stand strong in his faith and continue to be such a striking witness of the importance of Christ in his life. I do this because if I believe what the Bible says (and I do) this man has nothing whatsoever to fear. Paul says as much in Philippians 1:21, "To live is Christ and to die is gain". This is a man who sat in a very similar position to Pastor Nadarkhani, persecuted for his faith, frequently imprisoned and ultimately killed for the message he preached. He did not see death as a thing to be feared or run away from but rather as "gain". Our concern for Pastor Nadarkhani's life, whilst right and natural, reveals, I fear, a worldly view of death as the ultimate end of everything and a heart which forgets God's promise of a future where "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away" (Rev 21:4).


This point came home to me as I reflected on what a joy it was to see two people take a first tentative step into faith in Jesus last night. Those people, I realised, were the ones who had really sat on death row, rightly condemned by their own sins. And it was these people who had needed the power of the cross to release them. The joy I found last night was in seeing two souls freed from their sins and discovering in Jesus the one whose sacrifice wipes away all our sin and declares each of us not guilty despite our obvious failures.


That is the truth of the matter. Youcef stands with his body trapped but his soul freed by the author of creation, his sins paid for on the cross. So many millions around the world today stand in the reverse situation and it is for them that my heart breaks.


I merely ask the question, which is a higher priority: freeing man who is free already or releasing one who is bound? I do not wish to sound cold, I do not wish to take away from the appalling evil which is taking place but I honestly believe that there is a danger here of looking at the situation with worldy eyes rather than those God gave us.


The Church thrives under persecution. 11 of the 12 apostles were murdered for their faith as they watched the Church explode in the first century. Christianity in China is growing so fast today where it was once outlawed and where international missionaries remain illegal. At the same time there were more Christian martyrs in the 20th century than in the previous 19 before that. The tender words to those "slain for the word of God and for the witness they has borne" to "rest a little longer"(Rev 6:9,11) in anticipation of the final glory should act as a reassurance to all those facing the dangerous persecution so alien to us in the west. If it is God's will that Pastor Nadarkhani is to join these ranks then he has simply returned to his loving father sooner and his death, I pray, will stand as a testament to the power and strength of his faith.


Remember, everyone, the words of Jesus: "whoever would save his life will lose it but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses of forfeits himself?"(Luke9:24-5).


To return to my friends from last night. When I asked Fredrick if he believed that Christ had been resurrected he paused and thought about it for a long time. He decided that yes, he did believe it. The reason that swung the evidence for him was the way in which the apostles, in a unique position in history to categorically know the truth of what they were saying, were prepared to die for what they knew. Killing the body of a man of God or even the Son of God, is easy. Killing their soul is impossible and the irresistible force of the Gospel will never be stopped.