In a finite world in any community, there are inevitably boundaries. There are inevitably inclusions and exclusions. The appeal to truth is inevitable. Often truth is analyzed to death under the rubric of psychiatry and psychology. Anna Russell took the Mickey out of this “me” generation with its forms of explaining away all strange behavior, she wrote:

I went to my psychiatrist to be psychoanalyzed

To find out why I killed the cat and blacked my husband’s eyes

He laid me on a downy couch to see what he could find

So this is what he dredged up from my subconscious mind

When I was 1, my mommy hid my dolly in a trunk

And so it follows naturally that I am always drunk

When I was 2, I saw my father kiss the maid one day

And that is why I suffer now from kleptomania

At 3, I had the feeling of ambivalence toward my brothers

And so it follows naturally, I poisoned all my lovers

But I am happy now I’ve learned the lesson this has taught

That everything I do that’s wrong is someone else’s fault

Now we say truth is shaped by community. Truth, at the end of the day, is merely what some particular group or individual perceives, what is true for you may not be true for me, but, of course, if you hold that view then you are holding that perspective is true. At the end of the day, you simply cannot escape the notion of truth.

Moreover, freedom cannot itself be endlessly open-ended.

There are truth claims to elementary biblical Christianity and people will divide around them. John goes so far as to say, “This is how you know the spirit of truth and the spirit of the antichrist.” 1 John 4:3

Elsewhere, there are other tests. In 1 Corinthians 12, the test is “Jesus is Lord.” Here, it’s “Jesus is the Christ,” because that’s what was being denied. It has to be said that in different generations, there will be different tests that are elevated. Luther said, “He who affirms the truth at every point, except specifically where it is being denied, is a heretic.”

This may not be, therefore, a sufficient criterion for everything. For example, the basic statement of faith of the World Council of Churches is “Jesus is Lord.” It’s a great statement. I would insist that it is a necessary condition for genuine Christianity.  But is it a sufficient condition? Jehovah’s Witnesses can affirm it. Mormons can affirm it; they believe we’re all on the same continuum with God. “I’m becoming just like Jehovah, just give me long enough.” Liberals can affirm it. Fundamentalists can affirm it.

Suddenly, it is no longer a sufficient criterion, however important a criterion it is. In fact, it doesn’t mean much when it means different things to different people.  What does that say about the WCC by itself. It is simply saying that one has to begin to understand one’s age and apply the heart of the gospel to the patterns that deceive, corrode, and corrupt. Every age will have them, we live in a lost world.

He does not say, “No matter what I preach to you, you have to believe it, or you’re damned.” He doesn’t say that. That’s what David Koresh said. It is not what Paul says. It is not what John says. It’s not an authority bound up with an individual such that no matter what I say, no matter what I do, it doesn’t matter. You believe it; that’s the truth.

Paul says, “Even if we who have brought you this gospel, or an angel from heaven, should bring any other gospel to you than the one we have brought, let him be anathema.” Galatians 1:8-9

There is a Christian community in line with the Christian apostolic gospel. When you find people who are constantly trying to step outside the line of the Word, outside the line of the Christian community committed to the apostolic gospel, then you find people that are drifting from this deposit of truth.

Community

As we look now at the idea of a Christian community, keep in mind that idolatry is also one of the key problems we face when it comes to creating community.

The church is made up of natural enemies. What binds us together is not common education, common race, common income levels, common politics, common nationality, common accents, common jobs, or anything else of that sort. Christians come together because they have all been saved by Jesus Christ and owe him a common allegiance. They are a band of natural enemies who love one another for Jesus’ sake.

What is a Christian community?

The people of God are those who are created by faith through his gospel

A Christian community consists of those who have repented and believed and have a common experience of the gospel, which is a message of grace.

The great change that has taken place in their lives, especially with respect to their relationship to God.… All of this is cast in a “once it was this, but now it’s that” sort of pattern. Hence, verses 1–3: “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh …” Ephesians 2:1-3

 Now something is different. “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ.” Now in our passage, Paul reminds his readers of the shudderingly dramatic change that has taken place in their lives with respect to their relationships with one another.… Gentiles, especially, with Jews. Once again there is the same pattern: “Once it was this, but now it’s that.

Now what all of this suggests is Paul desperately wants true believers in Jesus Christ to appreciate more and more how transcendentally wonderful the gospel really is. It circles on the death and resurrection of Christ and has utterly transformed their vertical relationship with the living God (“Once you were this, but now that”) and has utterly transformed their horizontal relationships (“Once you were this, but now that”).

Our pre-Christian past. Paul begins with a, “Therefore, remember …” and picks up the remember further in verse 12. “Therefore, remember that formerly you were such-and-such.” Verse 12: “Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ.

There are different ways of remembering things. Scripture actually has quite a bit about what we’re supposed to forget and what we’re supposed to remember.

There is a sense in which we should forget the past. Paul says in Philippians chapter 3 that he forgets those things that are behind. What he means is the steps of progress he has made as he presses forward to the future. There is a kind of remembering that is merely nostalgic, sentimental.

Paul was a child of the old covenant, and he was grateful for that heritage and proud of it. Now, of course, as a Christian, he no longer thinks this marker of the old covenant is critically important. So he can say two or three really shocking things in 1 Corinthians 7:19 and in Galatians 5:6. He says, in effect, “Circumcision is neither here nor there, just keeping the commandments of God.”

The fundamental features of this salvation, both in chapter 2, verses 1–10, and here in chapter 2, verses 11–22, are described in reference to sin, self-focus, the wrath of God, without eschatological hope, without knowledge of God. They’re not described in sociological categories. They’re described in essentially God-relational categories.

At the end of the day, that is ultimately the Old Testament stance and the New Testament stance. The transformation of the gospel does not focus, first and foremost, on the social dynamics of change but on being reconciled to God and the way that works out in the social dynamics of change in this new humanity.

We are called again and again to remember what lies at the heart of our salvation.

We have been saved from sin, its consequences in death and hell. We have been reconciled to God. As we are reconciled to God, so we find others all around us also reconciled to God. All those horizontal relationships are thereby transformed as well in this new humanity.

Verse 13: “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”

It’s by Christ it’s by his death, but the change now is on their conversion.

What Christ has done. He has made two one. Of course, every culture has its own way of thinking of us versus them, of identifying human beings. But in this passage, he does not speak, essentially, as a Christian Jew. Rather, he sees himself in what theologians across the centuries have called, the third place. It’s not as if he’s a Christian Jew who has to flex to win Gentiles. He sees himself, rather, as a Christian who has to flex to win Gentiles and has to flex to win Jews. So he says, “To the Jew I became a Jew. Though that’s not really where my identity is.” He says. “I had to become a Jew to win the Jews. And then to the Gentiles I had to become like them, though that’s not really where my identity is.”

He sees three groupings in humanity: Christians, Jews, and Gentiles.

That gives him a different view of the law. “To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews.” Now what does that mean? How do you become like a Jew? Well, he explains. “To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) …” He submits to all kinds of Jewish prescriptions.

So he has to adapt for them! But does that mean he becomes completely free from the law? “Though,” he says, “I am not free from God’s law …” You say, “Whoa. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You just said you are free from God’s law. So why is he now saying he’s not free from God’s law?” Well, he explains. “I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law …” In other words, the covenant under which he sees himself bound is no longer the Mosaic covenant, the law covenant. The covenant under which he sees himself bound is Christ’s covenant, Christ’s law, Christ’s demands.

Paul sees in Ephesians, chapter 2, three groups: Jews, Gentiles, and the church of God, drawing the language from 1 Corinthians 10. By making the two one. There were these two: Jews and Gentiles. Now Christ has made the two one in the sense there is now a new humanity.

A new humanity that can’t be identified just with Jews or that can’t be identified just with Gentiles. It’s a new humanity: a new group, as it were. In this center, Christ is our peace. So we read, “He himself is our peace who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations.”

What Christ has purposed.

Eph 2:15 having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; that he might create in himself of the two one new man, so making peace; 16 and might reconcile them both in one body unto God through the cross, having slain the enmity thereby

His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace. Now in this context, peace with each other. The peace with God is presupposed from chapter 2, verses 1–10, the vertical dimension. Here it’s the hostility between the peoples that has been overcome, thus making the two one.

“… in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.”

The Requirements of Community

Ephesians 2:19 So then ye are no more strangers and sojourners, but ye are fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God, 20being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief corner stone; 21 in whom each several building, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple in the Lord; 22 in whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God in the Spirit.

There are huge social consequences of this great salvation; huge consequences in our understanding of who we are.

A new humanity, a new citizenship, all built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. There was a dependence on revelation to establish this new covenant. This core of revelation was Jesus Christ himself, the ultimate foundation, an argument that is picked up in 1 Peter 2 and elsewhere.

Let’s make this personal.

Verse 22: “In him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.”  This is wonderful  in comparison with the description of who we are in chapter 2, Children of wrath. Deserving of condemnation. Excluded from the covenants with Israel. Without hope. Without God.

Now, together, a temple in which God lives by his Spirit. Then there are huge practical implications worked out in what follows in Ephesians 3:14. “For this reason …” Because of the argument in chapters 1 and 2. “For this reason I bow my knee and I pray in a certain way chapter 4: “As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient …”

All the consequences flow out of this gospel that has reconciled us to God and constituted us a new humanity. For understandable reasons, all of this passage is cast, of course, in terms of reconciliation between Jews and Gentiles. it doesn’t mention any mention other language groups.

So it will be until the end comes. Christ has made one new humanity. We have been transformed. We’re built on the foundation of Christ Jesus himself, the apostles and the prophets being the ones who have mediated this revelation to him. In him this whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord! This temple will not be destroyed. This temple will not be overthrown.

Some wag has said, “For our grandparents, Christianity was an experience. For our parents, Christianity was an inheritance. For us, Christianity is a formality. For our children, Christianity is an inconvenience.”

should we wring our hands in despair and say, “The church is done”? No, God raises up new generations again, new converts who are preaching the gospel and eager to serve.

Christ is building this new humanity, this church of the living God, and you are members of this church, rising as a holy temple, the very dwelling of God. “… in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.”

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ

This remains true for Christians today. In the New Testament, 1 Peter 2:9–10 deliberately takes phrases from Exodus 19:4–6 and applies them to the church. We too are a people belonging to God,  because we have heard and believed the gospel and have been brought into a new relationship with other Christians ( 1 Peter 1:22).

The body of Christ—those who are members of one another in his life

A Christian community, secondly, consists of people who deliberately share life together.

The controlling biblical metaphor for this aspect is that Christians are God’s “family” and “household” (Galatians 6:10; Ephesians 2:19; 1 Peter 4:17). A family shares all of life together, eating, living, and working together. The other controlling metaphor is “the body,” another powerful way of saying that Christians are not an aggregation of individuals but a coherent organism, with each member playing his or her part and deeply, integrally connected to the rest (see Romans 12:4–8).

The fellowship of the Spirit—those who are a model of his future

A Christian Spirit-filled community is an alternative society that models distinctive ways to do everything in life.

One of the controlling biblical metaphors for this is the church as “a city on a hill” ( Matthew 5:14), whose visible behavior shines out and shows the world the glory of God.

In the future, God is going to unite and heal all things under the lordship of Christ (see Ephesians 1:9–10; Isaiah 11:1–9.)

Becoming the sort of community described above requires creative community-building strategies.

A Biblical Survey of Community-Building Practices

Paul said that in Christ’s body, “each member belongs to all the others” (Romans 12:5). This goes deeper than the modern concept of being a member of a club, Paul was saying, “You are the limbs and organs of one another. You are the eyes, arms, and heart of one another.” We are profoundly interdependent.

practices that are all about affirming one another—about how to be friends.

Practice 1—affirming one another’s strengths, abilities, and gifts

Practice 2—affirming one another’s equal importance in Christ

Practice 3—affirming one another through visible affection

In Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote:

The first service that one owes to others in the fellowship consists in listening to them. Just as love to God begins with listening to His Word, so the beginning of love for [others] is learning to listen to them. … Listening can be greater service than speaking. … There is a kind of listening … an impatient, inattentive listening, that … is only waiting for a chance to speak and thus get rid of the other person.

Practice 4—sharing one another’s space, goods, and time

Practice 5—sharing one another’s needs and problems

Practice 6—sharing one another’s beliefs, thinking, and spirituality

Practice 7—serving one another through accountability

Even more specifically, we must allow ourselves to be accountable to others to live as we should, even in the more personal aspects. In particular, we must be willing to admit where we have besetting sins and look to the Christian community to help us overcome them.

Practice 8—serving one another through forgiveness and reconciliation

Christians in community are never to give up on one another.

Practice 9—serving one another’s interests rather than our own

This is a general mindset of putting the needs and interests of others in the community ahead of our own. It is the classic servant-heart.