A Permanent Address

One of the stories my much older brother tells me about the old days recounts the day when the family had just moved to a Los Angeles suburb. I should say, another L.A. suburb, since, all told, we moved about thirty times over the course of my childhood. No, my father was not in the military, nor was he on the lam. He just had wanderlust. The grass was always greener just up over that hill up yonder. So here we were (according to my brother, who is not always a reliable source), driving through the new neighborhood. Passing the elementary school, my dad said, "Look, that's where Mike will be starting kindergarten," to which my brother replied, "No offense, Dad, but who are you kidding? Mike will never see the inside of that place." He was right: I never did set foot on the property before we packed up and moved again. Yet no matter where we moved, the family was a constant. There are plenty of kids who grow up in the same place, but their parents are a million miles away in actual practice. Some, in fact, are so disappointed or even scarred from their childhood that when they leave home, it's for good. 

We call the church a family-the family of God. And like any family, it has its pluses and minuses. We know that there is an ideal church consisting of all the elect-the so-called invisible church-but precisely because it is invisible, affirming its existence does not mean that we can point to it and say, "There it is." The only church we know is the visible church, by whatever form of church government we call it (local, regional, national, international, or all of the above). And we have to admit that if seeing is believing, we might be hard-pressed at times to identify the church we know with the uncompromised church in glory. 

Jesus promised that when he left, he would send the Spirit to testify concerning him, bringing conviction and forgiveness through the gospel proclaimed. In the meantime, our Lord went "to prepare a place" for us to be together forever (John 14:3). It will be a permanent address at last. At its best, the church below is the staging area for the things to come: a kingdom of grace, not yet a kingdom of glory; a church militant, not yet the church triumphant. So the wheat and the weeds grow together until the Son returns to gather and make the final separation (Matt. 13:24-30). Until then, there is no pure church, but only churches more or less pure. For now, it is a "mixed body," with no doubt some sheep outside it and some wolves within.  Continue at Michael Horton