WHERE DO YOU PLACE YOURSELF?
Where would you place yourself between the assertion that there is no salvation outside the church and the position that the church is not essential to salvation? When you have decided where you stand along this continuum, reflect on what your position says about God. Where is God in relationship to the church? Did God make a mistake in establishing the church?
SUPERSESSIONISM
Is the church purely a human construction apart from God’s purposes? Did God establish the church but humans frustrated God’s purposes by their behavior so that it is a failed project? Do you find yourself in the supersessionist camp where first the Jews, then the Christians, then the Muslims, and then the Mormons have each failed to fulfill God’s intention? Is the outcome of history beyond God’s control because the power of the sinfulness of humanity continues to defeat the best intentions of God?
WHAT IF GOD KNEW WHAT GOD WAS DOING?
What if we take with full seriousness that God, rather than we as humans, is the determiner of truth? Then the issue becomes how we as humans have access to that truth. Without denying the obvious frailty of the church as a human institution, is it also possible to understand the church as the vehicle of God’s revelation of truth to the world?
Instead of the church being a group of people who seek God, what if the church is God’ means of seeking to reveal the Divine self to people. In this sense, the church is a downward movement rather than an upward movement. What if the church is the means by which God reaches out to people in a concrete, time-centered manner? This would suggest that the church both reflects and transcends its human nature. It is God’s chosen instrument by which God enters time and addresses humans in a way that they can receive the divine revelation.
WHAT IF THE CHURCH IS THE BODY OF CHRIST?
Consider the possibility that the church is rather than ought to be the Body of Christ. What if Paul was not speaking metaphorically but factually when he said to the Corinthians, “Now you are the Body of Christ and individually members of it? (1 Corinthians 12:12-27, Colossians 12:18, 24; 2:9-10, and Ephesians 1:22 and 4:15-16.)
John Calvin said in the Institutes 4.1.1 that God chose to entrust the Gospel of salvation to the church. If that is true, we have to ask the question of whether God had a means of salvation in mind that transcends the normal understanding of how to accomplish that. How might God accomplish the divine intention of salvation through a clearly flawed institution?
DOES THE INCARNATION CONTINUE?
Since we affirm that God approached humanity through the Word made flesh, is it possible to consider that God continues this revelation in Christ’s historical body made concrete in the church? Is there a way that we can experience the Word of God made flesh in the church? If so, do we need to learn how to exegete what God is saying to us in the church?
