Ecclesiology

Paul is consistent here. In Acts 20:28 he referred to the congregation at Ephesus as having been purchased with his own blood. He is writing in verse 25 to those very same people--the the same church Paul says Christ gave himself for.

He is also speaking of husbands loving their wives--specific wives, not some generic or universal wife.

And he is also speaking of Christ's sanctifying and cleansing this church. If he is not speaking of such, then he has utterly failed. That's because, if the Universal Church exists, it is hopelessly fractured, filled with error, and useless as a means of carrying out the Great Commission.

 

Ooh, I didn't mean to make your argument. I don't think I did.

To make your argument, I would have to argue that the Lord Jesus did not die for the church at Ephesus, and did not give himself for it. But since Paul has already said that he did shed his blood for FBC Ephesus, he must have died for every other New Testament congregation.

This makes it easier to make the case that the "one church" in Ephesians 5:25 is, in fact, the congregation at Ephesus.

One other point: Matthew 18:17 Jesus, giving instruction to his disciples, told them how to deal with a recalcitrant member.

Jesus also said they should disfellowship this member. You can't do that to somebody in the Universal church.

 

Good point Tom.

Perhaps Ruiz could explain, when exactly does someone supposedly become part of this "universal church"; is it at salvation, or at baptism, or when The Elders confer membership, or what?

 

I have used Scripture, plenty of it, you are deliberately ignoring it.
At some point in time you have to realize that words have meanings; and you cannot randomly change the meanings because you say your theology fits your meaning of the word, which you have redefined in order to fit your own specific preconceived theology. It is circular but that is what you are doing.

First, the word that is translated "church" is always ekklesia. It means assembly. Just as you cannot change the meaning of blue into green, or white into black, you cannot randomly change a local assembly into a universal assembly. An assembly, by very definition is always local.

Second, the Greek word ekklesia is used 115 times in the Bible. 112 times it is translated "church," and three times in Acts 19, it is correctly translated "assembly." When translated assembly it never refers to building, denomination, etc. It always refers to local assembly. That is the only meaning it has. You want me to use the Bible. I could quote to you all 115 usages but that would be rather tedious. I already gave you the general usage of Paul, writing to local churches, pastors of local churches, the seven churches of Revelation, and the pastors thereof. You don't get anything universal out of that. You get actual local churches from the writings of Paul.

You have not used proper exegesis to show anything that resembles a universal church. There is not a single verse in the Bible where the word cannot refer to a local church. You have failed to demonstrate any sense of a "universal church" in the Bible whatsoever.

Words have meanings. That is the meaning. I don't have to presuppose it. I know what it means. If you don't believe me study it out in both koine and classical Greek. This is the only meaning that the word has ever had. It is not presupposition; it is fact.

I start with a premise--that which I know. I know the meaning. The meaning of ekklesia is "assembly." I have studied this subject for years. It does not have any other meaning. It is a very common word in the Greek language. It is Greek 101. If you had even that much Greek you would know that.

I don't have to go to the Bible for the definition of a Greek word like ekklesia. I know what it means. It is sad that you don't. After you know the translation of the word--assembly--then you go to the Bible and find out its theological meaning, as to its purpose, function, etc.
An example.
biblios. It could mean book. But it is where we get our word Bible. The context gives its meaning. When you get the meaning, "bible," you go to the Bible, and find out the theological implications--inspiration, preservation, illumination, etc. But the simple translation of the word is: book, bible.
The simple translation of the word ekklesia is assembly, and that is all.

And that is why you are wrong. It is the meaning of a Greek word we are discussing not the theological concept of what is behind the word as explained above. First you must know the meaning of the word before you even start discussing the theology.

Words have meanings. I can rightly assert that ekklesia means assembly, because that is what it means. You have not proved otherwise and I doubt very much that you can. It doesn't have another meaning.

Have you even bothered to read Darby's translation of the NT. Every time ekklesia is mentioned he translates it as assembly. He is consistent and correct in doing so. From there you let your Bible give its own definition. But first you need the right word.

The issue is that the word was not translated literally, but rather in a general sense with a general word which would encompass all religions. They had to cede to political correctness to avoid literal translation.
There is a word in the Greek from which Kirche comes from. It refers to the building not the people. And that is what the word "church" actually refers to also. But the word in the Bible, ekklesia, "assembly" always refer to the people. The church is the people, not a building. That is an unbiblical definition of the word ekklesia, and thus an unbiblical definition of the word "church". The church is the people, the local assembly.

Sure they were common expressions. But are they accurate to the Greek. No. the word baptidzo means immersion. Biblical baptism is always by immersion. But they couldn't translate it that way because Anglicans didn't baptize that way. Nevertheless the word means immersion. Baptism is simply a transliteration of Baptidzo.

 

And since ekklesia means assembly it is right to maintain the meaning. You should accept that.

Ekklesia only has one meaning. It is assembly. It is not my meaning. It is the meaning that the Greek language has given it, and you cannot prove otherwise. It is the meaning of the word in Greek, not my meaning.

The Bible can give you theology depending how you put together Scripture. But the Bible does not give you meanings of Greek words. Ekklesia means assembly. The Bible does not give you that meaning. The Greek language does. If you don't study Greek then you won't know that. It is a simple definition word of a basic word in Greek. If you are too lazy to look it up that is your fault as well.

Again, there is no place where ekklesia is used where it cannot be used as local assembly. So let the Bible speak for itself, as you say.

Dig further and find out the theological purpose and definition of a "church." The word means "assembly."
Your question is hardly worth answering. It is one of the weakest arguments one could present.
1. When my son leaves the house with my daughter, does my family temporarily cease to exist because we are no longer under the same roof?
2. If a friend works for Target is he no longer an employee during the night when Target has closed its doors for the day.
3. Do stores like Target, Kentucky Fried Chicken, etc. cease to be those stores when they are not in operation, when their employees have gone back home.
4. Do their employees have to be their 24/7 for those stores to be called by their rightful names. And yet everyone of them are entities in and of themselves whether or not their employees are there. They don't cease to exist once the doors are shut. Neither does a church (the people) cease to exist just because they are not assembled. Like a business they assemble at certain times and they stay connected for a purpose--to obey the Great Commission.

Of course not. It means assembly, and is a declaration that no other meaning has to be forced upon it, like you try and do.

Paul was writing to the Ephesians of his time and only his time. The letter was to the church at Ephesus. It is applicable to all Bible-believing churches such as ours.

You did force your interpretation into it. You did not interpret the passage in the light of the definition of the word "ekklesia" which is assembly. And thus you arrived at a wrong theology. You imposed a preconceived theology into the book. The word means assembly. You must start from there. It is a basic simple word of the Greek language. It has no other meaning. The very fact that you try and make this word "assembly" mean something totally opposite of its actual meaning (from local assembly to universal organization) is ludicrous. The word has no such meaning and never has.

Define the word.
Go to the Bible.
Use the word in the context of the Bible. Determine the meaning from there. But first you must know the meaning of the word. You can't take a word and just assign any meaning you want because "that is what I want the context to make it say, or because that is what my theology wants it to say. No, words have meanings. We work with those words. One cannot change the Greek language to their liking in order to support their theology.

 

To add more to this, Brother, THE CHURCH(the body of CHRIST), one MUST BE SAVED(not screaming, just for emphasis, only) to be added to Her. Now, the "local church", all you have to do is make a "confession", be dunked under H2O, have your name added to their church book, and "presto chango", you are an OH-fficial member of the local church!! This doesn't guarantee you a home in heaven.

Now, when you have been added to THE CHURCH(The body of CHRIST), this does guarantee you home in heaven. The local churches are chocked full of hypocrites, but THE CHURCH doesn't have one hypocrite in Her whatsoever.

The local church is for the natural body to go, so that you can worship the Lord in the Spirit. THE CHURCH is for the soul, where we can commune with Him any time, day or night.

 

Catholicity has the quality of being universal.

 

You still don't understand do you.
That is fine when you have words with more than one meaning.
In English the word church now has half a dozen meanings, we have to determine the meaning by the context in which we are using the word.
In Greek there is no leeway. The word ekklesia has only one meaning. It doesn't matter what the context is, the meaning of the word is always assembly. You don't have any "wiggleworm" for you theology.

In Acts 19, the mayor dismissed the assembly, the ekklesia. Ekklesia still means assembly whether in a religious or secular sense. It is an assembly. It can't be translated any other way. That is the meaning of the word. And that is where you must start. You can't assign a different meaning to the word because of your bias toward the Bible according to your theology.

 

The Universal Church IS though the sum of all the local Churches on earth right now, those who are saved in the groups, along with those already passed in Christ into heaven...

So no Visible Church denomination on earth is the Universal Church, really it is summation of ALL the saints in Christ since Pentacost...

And the keys to Kingdom again represent means to preach/teach way to God, in Christ, and ultimateauthority still resides in Him!

 

Good, I am glad that you have a knowledge of some Greek. But you haven't displayed any. Greek lexicons will give meanings such as wind, spirit etc. to the word "pneuma," but they won't do that to the word "ekklesia." That is your problem. You have only one meaning for this word. You want to make the word "chair" mean "table." It doesn't. If you have that much Greek behind you ought to know what this word means, and how you can't force it to mean something it doesn't it.

 

Those are nice opinions but they aren't in the Bible. You certainly won't find any concept of a denomination in the Bible whatsoever.

 

All that i was saying was that the Lord right now has established local bodies"Churches", where the Gospel of Christ is preached/taught, and that their are some saved/lost attending those local gatherings...

IF you take all of the local assemblies on earth at this time, and pulled out of them those really saved, that number would be the visible Body of Christ on the earth, his "Church" add to that number saints departed and with Him in heaven THAT full number is the total people in His "Church" the "Universal Church" comprisded of the visible/invisible saints of God!

 

Jesus Fan, I don't know if you know what you're dealing with here. Some people, especially strong dispensationalists, just cannot fathom the existence of anything resembling a universal church. It is an anathema. I know, I used to be there myself.

Also, these discussions about the Universal Church usually get muddy when we start talking about the UC being visible or invisible. There are some, I don't know how many, within the UC camp that believe the church is only universal as an invisible body; but others, including myself, believe there is both an invisible and a visible UC, the invisible UC being an eternal body made up of all the saved souls both on the earth and in heaven; the visible UC being a temporal body made up of all the visible saints both saved and unsaved on earth at this particular moment in time.

Some people feel threatened by the idea of a visible Universal Church, for they think it implies a world-wide hierarchy with a central headquarters; but that is the Roman version of it. Of course there really is a central headquarters for both the visible and invisible UC - it is heaven, and it's Pope is Jesus Christ.

 

maybe easier then to just say that jesus and Apostles refering here to 'Body of Christ'''
that has local parts of it"arms/legs" that would be local Churches, while ALL of them together comprise full "Body of Christ"

 

It is a matter of terminology. Since church means assembly it, by very definition of the word, cannot be universal.
If you want to use a term that includes all believers why not use: family of God, the Kingdom, the Bride, and there are others. Just not church. There is no such thing as an assembly that cannot assemble. It is only common sense.