"... the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. "
(1 Timothy 3:15)
"... the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all."
(Ephesians 1:22-23)
IN these two verses from his epistles, Paul offers two different definitions of the Church. At first sight they seem to have little or nothing in common; indeed, the mental images they evoke are direct opposites of one another. "The pillar and ground of the truth": the image is one of stability, solidarity and strength. It is a static concept which stresses the permanency of a structure supported by an unshakeable pillar. "The fulness of him that filleth all in all": this is fluid rather than solid, and dynamic rather than static. The image it evokes is that of a liquid flowing into every nook and crevice. It corresponds to what is going on a few miles from our home, where a great dam has been built. Behind the dam, a new reservoir is gradually forming. It will take many months for the water level to reach the top of the dam but, as it rises, it will be steadily spreading the water into the hollows and gullies of the valley, until one day the reservoir will be full; it will have filled the entire valley.
How can a single entity be both solid and liquid, both static and dynamic? That is hard to explain: yet this is the Church's double role. And we have to recognise that sometimes its members become confused between the two parts of the role; they are stubbornly unmoving when they should be flexible, and flexible when they should stand firm.
God's truth is unchanging, and His Church is called upon to uphold it as a pillar holds up a [89/90] roof. The Church has no authorisation to change the truth, but simply to assert it, to guard it, and to withstand any attempt to bring it down. In this role, the Church is to serve as a counter, a defence against all those views which see truth as something that only exists for me, in my situation, here and now -- against 'situational ethics', or existentialism, or whatever the name may be. The Church asserts that the truth of God exists independently of all situations; that it is, rather, the criterion by which everybody's situations and decisions are to be judged, in every era of man's history.
That Christians have failed always to stand firm for God's truth is all too obvious. They have been quite willing to be flexible about it, and to soft-pedal, if not actually abandon, parts of it which they found embarrassing or convenient. At the same time, they are equally prone to promote forms and manners and structures to a status equal to that of truth; to turn things which should be flexible and amenable to change into immovable objects. In this way 'my church', or 'our order of service' are elevated to a dignity equivalent to that of the truth itself. Probably the first and clearest example of this bad habit is mentioned in Mark 9:5 when Peter, having just shared in the marvellous experience of the Transfiguration, suggested building three tabernacles to give permanent form to the passing experience. At least, in his case, Mark charitably offers an excuse for this bad suggestion: "He wist not what to say; for they were sore afraid". But, alas, the Church has been busy every since institutionalising forms, events and even -- as with Peter -- single memorable experiences. Only the truth qualifies for permanency in our human existence; everything else is transitory, our experiences most of all.
But the truth is permanent, eternal. And truth is the Church's business -- not in the first instance activity, or evangelism, or even loving and caring, but upholding God's truth. The other things have their place, loving and caring, for example: Paul identifies the place of love in the life of the Church. He says that we are to speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15). Truth is paramount, and neither the demands of evangelism nor the claims of love take precedence over it.
To be flexible when we should be firm in relation to the truth is, Paul tells us in this same fourth chapter of Ephesians, a sign of spiritual immaturity. He pictures those who are spiritual children as "tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine" (4:14). We are back to our reservoir! Here is the very essence of instability -- a cockleshell boat blown about on the surface of the moving water, a pathetic picture of Christians who eagerly chase after every new idea, who are swayed by the last doctrinal argument they heard, without ever subjecting those ideas and arguments to the challenge of truth. But, says Paul, "Ye have not so learned Christ; if so be that ye have heard him and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus" (4:20-21).
The second contrasting definition of the Church poses a problem; in the first instance, a problem of understanding. How can the Church add fulness to a Christ who fills all in all? How can one add a further dimension of fulness to a container which is already filled to the brim?
This is a problem with a history of its own in the annals of the Church, for out of it has arisen a heresy which periodically reappears. The argument runs as follows: if the Church contributes some extra dimension to the fulness of Christ, then Christ is in some way incomplete; He is less than perfect, less than universal, and His work is less than final. The logic of this is difficult to deny so, if we are not to be driven to this conclusion, we must discover an alternative meaning.
