Abraham Lincoln loved the Bible. He read it throughout his life and quoted it often. Lincoln was a firm believer in Jesus. But he had little use for the church. Many people today have the same attitude. They believe that they should have a relationship with Jesus but think that they would be hampered by belonging to a church. This is not what we find when we read what St. Paul and early Christian writers wrote about the Church. Early Christians could not think about Jesus except in terms of their relationship with the Church.
The word church means the convocation of all those who are gathered together in assembly to form the People of God. The Church has been called into being by God who dwells within it, rules over it, and directs it. Paul describes the Church by calling it the Body of Christ.
As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts, of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ. (1 Corinthians 12:12).
As the Body of Christ, members are bound together in a communion of life and virtue over which Christ rules. Through the Church a new creation emerges, a new humanity in Christ.
Incorporated into Christ
Believers become members of the Church through faith and baptism. Through Baptism believers are incorporated into Christ. “For all of you were baptized into Christ have clothed yourself with Christ.” (Galatians 3: 27). United in Christ through the gift of the Holy Spirit all believers were “…baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons, and we were all given to drink of one Spirit.” (1 Corinthians 12: 13).
Living in the Spirit Christians became
“a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, so that you may announce the praises” of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. (1 Peter 2:9)
In the later letter to the Ephesians, the Church is vividly described as the bride of Christ who
loved the church and handed himself over for her to sanctify her, cleansing her by the bath of water with the word, that he might present to himself the church in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. (Ephesians 5: 25 – 28).
Early Christians were taught a new way of life in which through the Church they entered into the mystery of dying and rising in Christ. With their fellow Christians they are to live as if they are dead to sin and living for God in Christ (Romans 6:11).