He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Matthew 16:15-16.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
The Covenant I made with Abraham and his descendants was from My spoken Word and it produced a household of faith. The Covenant I made with Moses and the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that I redeemed from the slavery of Egypt was from My written Word and it produced a nation of faith. The New and Everlasting Covenant that Jesus made with you and I made with Jesus (Jesus being your representative and great High Priest so that you enter that Covenant with Me in your Covenant with Him) was from My Word manifested in the flesh dwelling among you and it produced the glorious Church, the Body of Christ, an entirely new creation of which Jesus is Head and the chief cornerstone and each believer is a member of the Body and a living stone built into the spiritual edifice of the Church. And within each person and within the Church My Spirit dwells. The Church is the powerhouse of the universe.
And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. . . But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. 1 Peter 2:4-5;9-10.
Peter and the disciples were used to there being a “house (temple)” where I dwelt because I had put My Name there. I had instructed Moses, after I had given him the one place of worship for My people in the wilderness on the way to the land I had promised Abraham for his descendants, that is, the Tabernacle, where sacrifices for sin, peace offerings, and thanksgiving offerings were made by those consecrated to Me as priests to sanctify My people from sin so that I could continue to dwell among them, that when they conquered the land I promised to Abraham, there would be one place where I would put My Name and it was only there they were to offer sacrifices for sin, peace offerings, and thanksgiving offerings, and it was only there they were to sacrifice the Passover and the other appointed times and pilgrimage feasts. But to them it was one physical building in a chosen place and that had to be where worship took place.
And to many people today, even born-again believers, “church” is still just a building where they go on Sundays to fulfill an obligation they believe they owe Me. Yes, the church needs a place to gather but the “church” is far more than a building, it is a living, Spirit filled body that is made up of many members but all under one Head that is being built up and joined together until all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of My Son, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. You are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.
Let Me remind you of the conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well to whom Jesus revealed that He was the Messiah and you will see Jesus is introducing her to the concept of the church.
The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.” John 4:19-26.
Jesus revealed to this Samaritan woman the Church. And it was based upon the foundation of the revelation of the Messiah. Peter to whom this mystery was revealed along with the other disciples when he declared Jesus to be the Messiah found the same rock foundation. My Word made flesh dying and rising to bring you all into Christ as His body the Church.
In Greek, the language the New Testament was written in, the work you translate as “church” is ekklésia (ἐκκλησία,). Ekklēsía is from “ek,” which means “out from and to” and “kaléō,” which means “to call”. The church is a people called out from the world to be Mine, i.e., the universal body of believers whom I call out from the world into My eternal kingdom.
My Son introduced the Church to Peter and the disciples one day after asking them who they thought He was, in other words, why did they follow Him. And I revealed to Peter that Jesus is My Son and the Messiah and Lord. And that is the solid rock revelation upon which the most amazing edifice ever conceived is built. An entirely new way of relating to Me and other believers—one body of many members with My Son as the head, a partnership but even closer, for I refer to the Church as not only the Body of Christ but His bride, for the two have joined together as one flesh, your humanity and My divinity joined in one new man, the Risen Christ. And when I raised Him, I raised you with Him and seated you with Him at My right hand with all things under your feet in Him.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, 30 because we are members of His body. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. 32 This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. Ephesians 5:26-33.
In the next Life Lesson we shall consider the conversation that introduced the Church and then so much that Jesus showed the apostle Paul about the Church.
So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit. Ephesians 2:19-22.
Jesus introduced the Church, a new creation in Him whereby Gentile and Jew join as one new man in Christ. My apostle Paul called it a mystery now revealed but not yet fully explored or grasped as to all you are and have in the Church.
I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. Ephesians 1:18-23.
I love you. You are a member of the Body of Christ, the most powerful and effective of all institutions, governments, enterprises, and assemblies on earth, as far above them as the heavens are above the earth, a supernatural body that is in the world but not of the world. Your resources are not dependent on the worldly economy but the Kingdom.