Articles
The Little Red Wagon
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Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually (1 Cor. 12:27).
Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish (Eph. 5:25-27).
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Robert Turner, a gospel preacher from an earlier generation, had a homey illustration to expose a misconception that many people have of the connection between the church and salvation. He described "a little red wagon that rolls along all loaded with ungodly back-sliders; and just before judgment it goes through a 'Jiffy Car Wash' and comes out well waxed and polished, ready to bear the riders home to glory" (Plain Talk, August 1969). The church, in other words, is something separate from the people. "The church" is where salvation is found, so people must be "in the church" in order to be saved.
As brother Turner loved to point out, the Biblical concept is quite different. The people ARE the church, not IN it. "Church" is a collective noun, like flock, herd, or covey. The entity has no existence apart from the members who comprise it. The church is "cleansed" and "saved" as each individual in it is cleansed and saved.
This may seem like a minor distinction, but the implications are far-reaching. Those who operate with the "little red wagon" concept are more prone to blame “the church”—the institution, the leadership, the organization—for what goes wrong. The complaint is usually, "THEY need to get their act together and fix it!" It never occurs to these people that they have individual accountability, too; they are just as much a part of "the church" as the leadership. This mental partition between "the church" and its members is a major factor in the lethargy that plagues so many churches; everyone sits around waiting for "the church" to make things happen.
This institutional viewpoint is also the driving influence behind efforts to activate the church universal in grand enterprises. Inter-congregational organizations are created to do the work of evangelism, benevolence, and edification—“for the glory of God,” of course. The end result is almost always a bloated bureaucracy that gets tangled up in infighting and scandal. Then--surprise!--a lot of disgusted people who footed the bill get turned off by religion.
I am a member of the body of Christ, His church. As such, I have a duty to do my part in glorifying God in my life. Am I doing it?
--David
