Humanity is greater than any individual human being because humanity, the species, endures throughout history; but individuals come and go. New individuals are born and die. Humanity is an enduring reality. Individual human beings on earth are not. And yet, individual human beings contribute to the reality of humanity. There would be no such thing as humanity, apart from individual human beings.
And so it is with Christ’s church, which is new kind of humanity, or a new way of being human, a new kind. God’s church endures over time. Why is this important? Because it is the new reality of life on earth, life in Christ. Paul identified Christ’s church as being synonymous with Christ’s body. And this means that Christ’s church endures over time. Christ is manifest in the world now through His church, but we also know that Christ’s church is incomplete or immature. It is in the process of becoming all that it can be—and will be—as Christ’s church continues to grow, and mature, and eventually encompasses all of humanity. The goal of the church in the world is to become the new kind or species or genus that will be known as Christian. That is the goal as expressed in Revelation 21.
We live today in the midst of a Holy mess. And yet that mess is not all bad. God is at work in our mess, just as God has always been at work in the mess of the world. Our day is not better or worse than other historical times, but it is different—and it is ours. The church today is a lot like a teenager who is struggling to determine the boundaries of acceptable behavior. But here’s the thing: God’s church is very much like individual Christians in that our sins, our errors and goofiness do not keep us from salvation. We are defined by the future that Christ’s has already prepared for us. We are not defined by our past sins and mistakes. We are forgiven and redeemed. Our sins are forgiven, and we are recalibrated for new life in Christ.
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