The early church had fierce debates over whether Jesus was human or divine. The party known as the Ebionites emphasized Jesus humanity. For them Jesus was one of the greatest humans who had ever lived and served as a model for our humanity. In contrast to them, the Docetics or Gnostics believed that Jesus was really God who occupied the body of a man in order to communicate with humanity but in reality was always fully diivine.
The great debate reached some sort of resolution in the Councils of Nicea with the church declaring that Christ was both fully human and fully divine. In effect the church declared that to emphasize either side to the exclusion of the other was to distort the true nature of Christ. Unless Jesus was fully human, he could not understand the depth of the power of sin that tore at our nature. At the same time, unless he was fully divine, he could not truly reveal God’s saving grace to humanity.
I believe that that same debate needs to take place with respect to the Body of Christ. Historically it has taken place but I believe we need to re-examine that debate in our contemporary setting. At some points in history, the emphasis was on the divine nature of the church. Lately the emphasis has been more on the sociological or human aspect of the church. We study the organizational dynamics of the church, applying the same tools as one would use to study any organization.
As with the debate over Christology, so with ecclesiology, I believe we will need to conclude that the church is the locus of that which is fully human and fully divine. To use spatial terms, it is in the church that the vertical and the horizontal intersect. Like with the debate over Jesus, if the church consisted of people who had already conquered sin, they would stand apart from most who live in this world and have no real message of good news for them. Yet, unless there is a true connection with the divine, we are merely one more philosophical group offering advice to the world.
As will be made clear later, this is not to suggest that God is not at work in the world outside the church but that here in the church is where the Divine Word is revealed to the human community in a way that may be utilized for the saving of God’s creation.
As Shirley Guthrie suggests on page 357 of Christian Doctrine (Revised Edition), The church is distinguished from society in that they are a community of people who know that they are sinners and are dissatisfied with that condition.They are gathered in the name of Jesus Christ. “Holiness is not found in the church and its members as such but in him from whom they seek forgiveness, change, help, and new direction.”
Perhaps a question we should wrestle with is whether we are helping the members of our churches to truely understand the nature of the church?
