Journal: Central Bible Quarterly
Volume: CENQ 04:2 (Summer 1961)
Article: 1 Introduction
Author: Anonymous

CenQ 4:2 (Summer 1961) p. 6

1 Introduction

1. Christianity has always been a “House” and a “Book” religion More than 100 of the 117 times the word “Church” occurs in the New Testament, reference is made not to a universal church in the generic sense, but to a particular and a local church with its body of believers and officers gathered in Christ’s Name (I Tim. 3:15). George W. McDaniel in The Church of the New Testament, finds the following usages: 12 times, “all redeemed in glory”; 14 times Institutional Church; 93 times, Local Church. In two of these instances ecclesia does not appear.

2. Evil is highly organized in this day as it was in the New Testament era (Rev. 2:9; 2:13), but the New Testament organization of the local church has never been so ignored and neglected as today.

3. Much of the confusion of Christianity today stems from the exclusion of Christ from that series of local churches that dot the land.

CenQ 4:2 (Summer 1961) p. 7

a. Christ, by His own sovereign choice, was excluded from heaven temporarily for our redemption—Psalms 22; Matthew 27:45–50.

b. Christ was excluded from His own nation because of Israel’s blindness—John 1:11, 12.

c. Christ was excluded from the world He created when they nailed Him to the cross—John 1:3.

d. Christ was excluded in figure in the Old Testament (Exod. 33:7–11); in force in the Gospel (John 9:35); in fact in Hebrews 13:12–13.

e. Christ in these days of apostasy is excluded from many of the so-called Christian churches (Rev. 3:20) because of the formalism of the Pharisees (Matt. 15:12, 13; Jude 11; Luke 18:9; 7:39); the worldliness of the Herodians (Matt. 14:1–14; Mark 12:13, 17), and the scepticism of the Sadducees (Mark 12:18...