The Christian Church is sometimes conceived as one or more religious institutions, created in apostolic times or in times of spiritual renewal such as the Protestant Reformation. However, the biblical conception of the Church is spiritual, organic and mysterious: the Church is the gathering of believers from all places and all times in Jesus Christ, who is given to them as their head by the Holy Spirit.

1.Jesus Christ builds his Church

1.1.”I will build my Church”.

The word “church” is a fairly literal translation of the Greek word ἐκκλησία (ékklèsia), which in ancient Greece referred to an assembly of citizens, i.e. free men of the people. The word has the same root as the verb καλέω (kaléô), which means “to call”: the prefix ἐκ (ék), which here means “out of”, combined with this root gives the verb ἐκκαλέω (ékkaléô), which connotes the idea of a “convocation”, that of the citizen people retiring to deliberate. These assemblies, homologous to the Germanic Þing (thing) of ancient Northern Europe, are ancient examples of the democratic functioning of the city or community.

Christ uses the Greek term, which has become established in common usage, to refer to what we now call “the Church”, and which covers a variety of meanings from the moment it is used in the New Testament. One of the most famous texts on this subject is found in the Gospel according to Matthew, and follows Peter’s no less famous confession:

15 And he said to them, Who do you say that I am? 16 Simon Peter answered, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. 17 And Jesus said to him, Happy are you, Simon, son of Jonah; for flesh and blood has not made this clear to you, but my Father in heaven. 18 And I say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not be strong against it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven: whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

Matthew, Chapter 18, verses 15-19

This text closely associates the identity of Jesus as “Christ” and “Son of God” with the person of Peter on the one hand, and above all with “the Church”, which Jesus Christ promises to build (in the future tense) on the foundation of the rock of Peter’s confession. So the Church has not always existed, but it has always been there.

1.2.The promise of the Holy Spirit

If Christ promised that he would build – in the future tense – his Church, it is because the birth of the Church is closely linked to his own destiny: it is his Church, the people he gathers from the midst of the world to be his disciples. For the Church, which the New Testament calls the “body of Christ”, to be born, Christ had to pass through the atoning death to which he was predestined, and through the resurrection that manifests him as the Son of God through the Holy Spirit (Romans 1:4). Moreover, Christ had to be “exalted to the right hand of God”, that is to say, he had to have left the earth to receive in his humanity the name of Lord, which envelops authority over all things:

5 Let the same mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus, 6 who, existing in the form of God, did not consider it a prey to be snatched away to be equal with God, 7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, becoming like men; and having appeared as a mere man, 8 he humbled himself, making himself obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. 9 For this reason God also highly exalted him and gave him the name which is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Epistle of Paul to the Philippians, Chapter 2, verses 5 to 11

For it was with this authority that Jesus Christ first sent his apostles out with the mission of making disciples of all the nations of the world, in the famous text from the Gospel according to Matthew, telling them: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Matthew 28:18-20). This apostolic mission is to be carried out by the power of the Holy Spirit, who raised him from the dead, and the Spirit is promised to the apostles again when the risen Christ shows himself to them:

4 As he was with them [his apostles], he charged them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, what I had announced to you, he said to them; 5 for John baptized with water, but you in a few days will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. 6 Then the Apostles, meeting together, said to him, Lord, is this the time when you will make the kingdom of Israel come again? 7 And he said to them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority. 8 But you will have power, the Holy Spirit coming on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

Acts, Chapter 1, verses 6-8

1.3.Pentecost and the birth of the Church

If we insist here on the mission entrusted to the apostles, it is because the gift of the Holy Spirit, which would enable them to carry it out, marks the act of birth of the Church properly speaking, on the feast of Pentecost, which followed Christ’s resurrection. The book of Acts interprets the promise of the risen Christ as fulfilled by the strange event that took place when one hundred and twenty disciples were gathered together to pray, led by the apostles, in an upper room in Jerusalem:

1 On the day of Pentecost they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 And tongues like fire appeared to them, separate from one another, and came to rest on each of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 2, verses 1 to 4

In fact, this outpouring of the Holy Spirit is the only event in the Book of Acts that corresponds to Christ’s promise to be “baptised with the Holy Spirit in a few days” (Acts 1:5). There is a surprise here: not only is the Holy Spirit poured out on Christ’s apostles, to whom it was first promised, but also on all the disciples gathered together: it is therefore the mark of all Christians, who by receiving it are incorporated into the Church. For there is an essential transition here in the lives of the apostles and disciples, in that having followed Jesus when the Church was not yet established, and without all of them having been converted (in Luke 22:32, Jesus implies that Peter is not converted, which is clear when Peter denies him), at Pentecost they receive the power that will enable them to be witnesses for Christ and thus carry out the apostolic mission.

However, the same account testifies shortly afterwards to the actual existence of the Church, when many Jews turned to Christ following Peter’s public proclamation in Chapter 2:

44 All who believed were in one place, and they had everything in common. 45 They sold their possessions and goods, and shared the proceeds among them all, according to each man’s needs. 46 Every day they went together to the Temple, breaking bread in their houses and taking their food with joy and simplicity of heart, 47 praising God and giving praise to all the people. And the Lord added to the Church daily those who were being saved.

Acts, Chapter 2, verses 44-47

From this we can infer that the Church was born at Pentecost: Christ having completed the cycle of his coming to earth by his resurrection and ascension, and having returned to the world, the Church was born.

2.The Church is a spiritual body

2.1. Believers from every place gathered under the head of Christ

Let us remember that when Christ compared himself to “the good shepherd, who lays down his life for his sheep” (John 10:11), that is, “the people whom the Father has given him out of the midst of the world” (John 10:27-29, John 17:6), he was speaking mysteriously of an enclosure where the sheep of his people were to be found, and also of other enclosures, from which he was to “gather other sheep” into a single “flock”:

14 I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep, and they know me, 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for my sheep. 16 I have other sheep which are not of this fold; these I must bring in; they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock, one shepherd.

Gospel according to John, Chapter 10, verses 14-16

Now, the proclamation of salvation to the nations was a theme known to the Jewish people, already existing in the Old Testament, first in the promise made to Abraham to “bless in him all the families of the earth” (Genesis 12:2-3, for example), and in certain prophecies or universal appeals, as we find, for example, in the book of Isaiah :

1 Come to the waters, all you who are thirsty, even you who have no money. Come, buy and eat; come, buy wine and milk, without money, without paying anything! 2 Why do you spend money on things that don’t give food? Why do you work for that which does not satisfy? Give ear to me, then, and you will eat what is good, and your soul will delight in good things. 3 Give ear, and come to me; give ear, and your soul will live: I will make an everlasting covenant with you, to make my favour to David enduring. 4 Behold, I have made him a witness to the peoples, a ruler and dominion over the peoples. 5 Behold, you will call nations you do not know, and nations that do not know you will come to you, for the sake of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, who glorifies you.

Isaiah, Chapter 55, verses 1-5

This vocation of ancient Israel to be “a light to all nations” was its raison d’être, and the apostle John interprets the words of the high priest Caiaphas, who precipitated Jesus’ condemnation as an involuntary prophecy of the universal significance of his atoning death, in the light of this universal blessing:

49 One of them [the Sanhedrin], Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, You understand nothing; 50 you do not consider that it is in your interest that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation should not perish. 51 Now he did not say this of himself; but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for the nation. 52 And it was not for the nation only; it was also so that the scattered children of God might be united in one body.

John, Chapter 11, verses 49 to 52

Thus, beyond the Jewish nation, to which Christ had first been sent for its salvation, the evangelist discerns that his work is for the benefit of “all the scattered children of God” – an expression that denotes authentic believers in the apostle John – to the point of gathering them into a single body, which is the Church.

2.2. Spiritual rebirth and the work of the Spirit

If, therefore, at the time when Christ announced that he would build his Church, he was talking about gathering together the sheep of Israel and elsewhere, it means that even before Pentecost there were disciples of Christ outside the Jewish nation. At a pinch, we could understand Jesus’ words as referring to men living in territories neighbouring the Palestine of his time, who had heard about him or even seen or met him, and had become his disciples. But it seems to us that the apostle, in speaking of the “scattered children of God” (John 11:52, op. cit.), is adopting a much broader perspective. He considers that the work of Christ is intended to gather together those who are already “children of God”, and who are scattered throughout the world. In the Jewish context of the time, “dispersion” was no doubt an implicit reference to the existence of Jews among all the nations. However, the universality of Christ’s words, and of the Gospel according to John, suggest that the idea was extended to all believers throughout the world.

We are not talking about Christians here, in the sense that they would not have known Christ by name or heard of his teachings. For, even though the evangelist announces from the outset that God has given power to those who believe in the name of Jesus Christ to “become children of God” (John 1:12-13), the expression refers to a relationship with God himself, considered possible long before the coming of Jesus Christ, as shown by the examples of Abraham and David, alluded to by the apostle Paul in the epistle to the Romans, using the expression in a unique way to designate the spiritual posterity of Abraham :

6 This is not to say that the word of God was without effect. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel, 7 and not all of them are Abraham’s children; but it is said, In Isaac shall thy seed be named, 8 that is to say, not the children of the flesh are the children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as the seed.

Epistle to the Romans, Chapter 9, verses 6-8

And the reality of the “new birth”, by which men become “children of God”, is attested in places and times where Christ is not known or not yet known, through the very words of Jesus, who addressed Nicodemus, who had come to ask him about these things. He reproached him for his ignorance, saying, “You are the teacher of Israel, and you do not know these things” (John 3:10): the reality of the new birth therefore predates the coming of Christ.

3.The Church and the mystery of Christ

3.1.One body inhabited by one Spirit

According to our understanding, the Church of Jesus Christ is not a creation “ex nihilo”, in the sense that before the coming in the flesh of the Son of God there would not have existed believers, “children of God” or a “spiritual body”. But the men who, mysteriously, share in the Spirit’s work of sanctification, through the spiritual rebirth made possible by faith in God’s revelation (see Justice and justification, natural religion), have from time immemorial been scattered among all the nations, having known God in very different circumstances, and not having been brought together under the same visible banner, under the same human leader. With Jesus Christ, this disparate spiritual body finds a “head”, and believers from all over the world are thus gathered under the same banner: the name of Jesus Christ, through whom their sins have been forgiven, even to those who came before him or who have not heard of him, and who has been judged worthy to be the first among them, that is to say, their “head”. In this sense, since Pentecost, believers from Israel and the Gentiles, from the past and the present, who already formed a single body, have been integrated into Christ as a man to be his spiritual body, that is, an assembly of men and women inhabited by his Spirit, who “convicts the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment” (John 16:8). The Church is thus born when the man Jesus Christ is united by the Holy Spirit to the body of believers of every place and time.

3.2.The mystery of the Church

The apostle Paul speaks of the Church in relation to the “mystery of Christ”, i.e. a reality that was previously hidden but was revealed with the coming of Jesus. So he does not approach it as something new, but as a reality that needed to be brought to light, when he says :

3 It was by revelation that I came to know the mystery about which I have just written in a few words. 4 As you read them, you can imagine the understanding I have of the mystery of Christ. 5 It was not made manifest to the sons of men in other generations, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to the holy apostles and prophets of Christ. 6 This mystery is that the Gentiles are joint heirs, forming one body, and partakers of the same promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel, 7 of which I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace, which was given to me by the working of his power.

Epistle to the Ephesians, Chapter 3, verses 3-7

By affirming that the “mystery of Christ” was not “manifested to the sons of men in other generations”, Paul implies that it concerned something which existed before and was revealed to him, as to the “apostles and prophets of Christ”, and not something which would have been created during his lifetime. Otherwise, there would have been no question of hiding it from previous generations and then revealing it. Now, the content of this ineffable revelation is that Jews and Gentiles (i.e. “non-Jews”!) form the same body and share in the same promise, but in Jesus Christ and through the Gospel – and not in Moses and according to the Law.

3.3. Reconciled into one body by the Church

In fact, the “enmity” existing between Jews and Gentiles stems from a national separation of religious origin between the people of ancient Israel and the other nations. But as far as the Church is concerned, for the apostle such a separation is abolished, and does not even exist, since the promise made to Abraham 430 years before the giving of the Law – constituting ancient Israel as a theocratic nation – cannot be annulled by the Law. Thus, in Jesus Christ, the Church gathers and reconciles Jews and Gentiles into a single body for all time, as Paul expresses it when he teaches the Christians of Ephesus what their spiritual status is:

11 Therefore, you who were once Gentiles in the flesh, called uncircumcised by those who are called circumcised and are circumcised in the flesh by the hand of man, 12 remember that you were at that time without Christ, deprived of the right of citizenship in Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise, without hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been made near by the blood of Christ. 14 For he is our peace, who made the two into one, and broke down the wall of division, the enmity, 15 having put an end to the law of ordinances in its ordinances by his flesh, so that he might create in himself with the two one new man, making peace, 16 and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it destroying the enmity.

Epistle to the Ephesians, Chapter 2, verses 11-16

Consequently, if from the point of view of election there is a distinction between Israel and the Gentiles, from the point of view of faith there is none, for Jews and Gentiles are reconciled for ever in one Church, the body of Jesus Christ, which he purchased with his blood.