Tell me if you have heard this: a sermon from Acts 2.42-47 proclaiming the wonderful, communal nature of the early believers and how, if we are to impact the culture today, we need to recover this same spirit of the true New Testament church? I thought so. Honestly, and not to be nasty or anything, but it has gotten to the point where, even if it’s a podcast I listen to religiously (haha!) I avoid the episode if I see it is a sermon over these 6 verses.
My question is, is this even the model we are to be looking at to set our bearings? To start, we must fess up to the abuses of the “had all things in common” idea, since clearly, reading ahead into chapter 5, we see that this does not mean the type of new monasticism which many emergent types want so badly for it to endorse. It would surely be better for us to understand their relations not in this communal sense, but instead in the supporting sense of the next verse, “as any had need.” It wasn’t that they sold off everything and holed up in John Mark’s mothers house with organic foods and home schooling, but that they considered the things of this world fleeting and were willing to part with them “as any had need” so that the poorer of the believers were cared over.
So again, is this where we should look to discover how to fashion the church in a biblically appropriate manner? If we are talking about leadership and structure, certainly. Read Acts 6, 1 Timothy 3, and Titus 1 and find out how the Holy Spirit through the Apostles prescribed for us to judge and appoint leaders in the church. However, if it is a question of makeup, if we are searching to see what the church should look like in the world, how the believers should relate to one another in it, I would have to conclude no, the early church of Acts 2 should not be our role model. It should be Revelation 21.
Revelation 21? What? Yes, that’s what I meant. For those of you unaware of this passage, here’s how it starts:
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” (vv.1-4)
Revelation 21 is the consummation of God’s plan in all of creation. We see that he has judged the wicked and is now restoring the original purpose of the land. The first heaven and first earth, the creation that has been groaning in the pains of childbirth (Romans 8.22), is now cleared away and a new heaven and new earth come into being. And upon the new earth is the holy city, the New Jerusalem, where God tabernacles with man freely, as he did in the Garden, as he will do forevermore. Here all bad and evil things are gone and only the praise of the glory of God is known.
But how is this what we are to be looking towards? Why is this the model for the church, and what does that even mean?
Ephesians 2.19-22, “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”
1 Peter 2.9, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”
The church is the coming kingdom of God manifested in the world today. It is the embodiment of the “Now-Not Yet” tension created when Christ said, “[B]ehold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you” (Luke 17.20-21). The King has come and he has established the church, who speaks of him, to show his kingdom. But this kingdom will not be revealed fully until the end, until the events of Revelation 21. From now till then we are to show forth the kingdom of God, live as we are, as citizens of heaven (Philippians 3.20), proclaiming what has already been revealed to us, “the excellencies of him who called [us] out of darkness into his marvelous light.”
Reading the book Worldliness, edited by CJ Mahaney, I found the following paragraph which really nailed it home for me:
God holds up his church as Exhibit A for the reality of the gospel. As people called out of a fallen world, living transformed lives with transcendent values, the church displays the character of God, illustrates the power of God, and exemplifies the saving purposes of God. In fact, the church at this stage in salvation history has the privilege of signaling the next stage. Our life together gives the world a preview of life in the coming kingdom. . . . Who dreamed that their church participation was so significant? Giving the world a glimpse of the consummated kingdom of God! Does such a grand vision govern our attitude toward our local churches? [p.165]
“Who dreamed that their church participation was so significant?” I think this is the problem. If even for a good cause, we have gotten so caught up in trying to be like the church of Acts 2 that we often times forget that the church in Acts 2 was just trying to be the “church” of Revelation 21. They weren’t our model, they were an example of what following the model does. When our desire is to “[signal] the next stage” then we are focused on fulfilling what God says that next stage will include. No more tears, no more mourning, a spring of water to the thirsty. The presence of God dwelling among us. This is our model. This is what we are to imitate and initiate in the world. The New Testament church is the eschatological church, the kingdom of God manifested in a fallen world, proclaiming a king who is coming to reign, who has done sufficiently well to reconcile all of creation with its creator in glory in the holy city, the promised land, New Jerusalem.
Does such a grand vision govern our attitude toward our local churches? It should, and oh the power if it did.
