‘The church stems from the evangel, not the evangel from the church.

’1 These words of

Robinson take us to the centre of the relationship between the gospel and the Church.

This essay will argue that the gospel creates the Church, but the Church does not create

the gospel. The ontological implications for this asymmetrical relationship will be

explored. These include fellowship with God and one another, the importance of the

gather to understanding the Church and that it exists as an end in itself, not simply a

means to an end. The priority of the gospel over the Church also has implications for

the existence of the Church. It is an eschatological reality that is made manifest on

earth as Christians gather as well as in heaven as they are now gathered in Christ

The relationship between the gospel and the Church

The gospel is God’s self-revelation through the redemptive work of his Son Jesus. As

Calvin writes this ‘is the true knowledge of Christ, if we receive him as he is offered by

the Father: namely clothed with his gospel.’2 As the gospel’s relationship to the Church

is considered, it is imperative to understand that the gospel is fundamentally

Trinitarian. Torrance notes,

In the Gospel God has revealed himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but in

such a way that we know that he is in himself what he is toward us in his saving

acts in history, eternally Father, Son and Holy Spirit in his one divine being,

and that what he is eternally in himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, he is in

his activity toward us through the Son and in the Spirit.3

1
D. W. B. Robinson, Selected Works (ed. Peter G. Bolt and Mark D. Thompson; 3 vols; Camperdown
N.S.W.: Australian Church Record, 2008), 2:109.
2
J. Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (ed. John T. McNeill; trans. Ford Lewis Battles; 2 vols.; LCC
20–21; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960 [1559]), III.ii.6.
3
T. F. Torrance, The Trinitarian Faith: The Evangelical Theology of the Ancient Church (Edinburgh: T &
T Clark, 1993), 5.

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It is essential to see the relationship between the gospel and the Church as

asymmetrical.4 The self-revelation of the Triune God, through the Son in the Spirit, is

what gathers the elect to God and to each other in the fellowship of believers.5 It is this

gathering through the gospel that forms the Church. This achieves God’s redemptive

goal for humanity.

This can be seen in the prologue to John’s Gospel (1:1-18) where he presents a précis

of God’s salvation history.6 The eternal Word takes on human frailty and flesh so that

He might gather to the Father those who are His, so that they might become children

of God.7 The eternal Word precedes the act of gathering. As the gospel is proclaimed

by Jesus and the apostolic witnesses the Holy Spirit creates the Church (1 Thess 1:5-6,

2:13; 1 Pet 1:12). This testimony is handed on through Holy Scripture and as it is

proclaimed and applied by the Holy Spirit to the hearts of men and women it

continues Christ’s work of gathering the elect people of God, forming the Church.

‘Christ, when he illumines us into faith by the power of his Spirit, at the same time so

engrafts us into his body that we become partakers of every good.’8 Simply, the gospel

precedes the Church.

The gospel’s asymmetrical relationship with the Church reveals three key elements of

the Church’s being. Firstly, it is through the gospel that the Church is created to be in

4
John Webster, ‘The Church and the Perfection of God’, in The Community of the Word: Toward and
Evangelical Ecclesiology (ed. Mark Husbands and Daniel J. Treier; Leicester: Apollos, 2005), 77.
5
Calvin, Inst. IV.i.2.
6
Robert Doyle, ‘The Evangelical Doctrine of the Church’, Anglican Church League address delivered at
St. Paul’s Cambridge Park in Sydney on Monday 16th June 1997. Cited 20 March 2009. Online:
http://acl.asn.au/old/rcd_doctr_church.html.
7
At this point I would like to affirm that doctrine of Penal Substitutionary Atonement, Jesus death as a
substitute for sinners, is essential to this gospel that gathers the Church.
8
Calvin, Inst. III.i.35.

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fellowship with the divine Trinity and with one another. Secondly, it is by the gospel

that the Church is the gathered people of God. Finally because the gospel creates the

Church, the Church is not an end in itself.

Clearing the ontological air

It is important to recognise that the discussion of the being of the Church is a

discussion of the ontology of the Church. Until recently discussions about the

ontology of the Church have been dominated by two rival ontologies that have lead to

an understanding of the Church as a ‘graded hierarchy’ or a ‘political empire’.9

According to Gunton, an ontology that is informed by ‘the being of God, who is what

he is as the communion of the Father, Son and Spirit’ will give the ‘proper ontological

basis for the Church’.10 Webster concludes that the ontology of the Church must begin

with the doctrine of God, but is firmer in asserting that the relationship between the

Church and God ‘is most properly conceived as a relation-in-distinction, the

communion between the church and its Lord is best articulated as fellowship rather than

participation.’11 Webster frames his discussion of ontology in this way because he

observes that ‘communion ecclesiology is heavily invested in a theology of the

ontological union between Christ and the body of the church,’ and ‘it is

characteristically insecure (even casual) about identifying Christological boundaries’.

This makes it impossible ‘to determine the point at which Jesus stops and the church

begins’.12

9
Colin E. Gunton, ‘The Church on Earth: The Roots of Community’, in On Being the Church: Essays on
the Christian Community (ed. Colin E. Gunton and Daniel W. Hardy; Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1989), 53;
Robert Doyle, ‘The Church of the Holy Trinity’, The Briefing, 121 (1993): 2; Gunton, ‘The Church on
Earth’, 51-53.
10
Gunton, ‘The Church on Earth’, 66.
11
Webster, ‘The Church and the Perfection of God’, 92.
12
Webster, ‘The Church and the Perfection of God’, 85.

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An example of this is the ecclesiology of Jenson. He pursues the idea of communion in

ecclesiology to the extent that the when he poses the question ‘Where am I to aim my

intention, to intend the risen Christ’?13 He answers, ‘to the assembled church, and if I

am in the assembly, to the gathering that surrounds me.’14 This elevates the Church to

a status above that of a creature and this damages our understanding of Christology

and of Ecclesiology.15 It can result in an over-literalising of the metaphor of the body

of Christ to the point where the bodily resurrection of Jesus is the Church.16 As O’Brien

notes in his study of metaphors for the Church, ‘To speak of the church as the body of

Christ which is the extension of his incarnation in the world today […] certainly

exceeds the limits of Paul’s teaching.’ 17 Torrance also addresses this, ‘When St. Paul

speaks of the Church as the Body of Christ, He is expressly distinguishing the Church

from Christ, although the Church is grounded in the oneness of the love between the

Father and the Son (John 17:26).’18

The Church is a creature in fellowship with God and one another

This ontological clarification comes by understanding the asymmetrical relationship

between the gospel and the Church. It helps elucidate that the being of the Church is a

creature in fellowship with the Triune God through the gospel. In the gospel and by

the Spirit, God show his grace and gathers the elect to himself, the Church remains a

13
Robert W. Jenson, Systematic Theology (2 vols.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 2:213.
14
Jenson, Systematic Theology, 2:213.
15
Susan K. Wood, ‘Robert Jenson’s Ecclesiology from a Roman Catholic Perspective’, in Trinity, Time
and Church: A Response to the Theology of Robert W. Jenson (ed. Colin E. Gunton; Grand Rapids,
Michigan: Eerdmans, 2000). 178-87.
16
J. A. T. Robinson The Body: A Study in Pauline Theology (London: SCM Press, 1952).
17
P. T. O’Brien. ‘The Church as a Heavenly and Eschatological Entity’, in The Church In the Bible and the
World: An International Study (ed. D. A. Carson. Exeter U.K.: Paternoster Press, 1987), 114.
18
T. F. Torrance. Royal Priesthood: A Theology of Ordained Ministry. (Edinburgh: T & T Clarke, 1955;
repr., Edinburgh: T & T Clarke, 1993), 31.

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creature upon which God acts and wills.19 The priority of the gospel shows that

although the Church is a creature, it is not simply a human act but a work of God

through the Spirit. As Gunton notices in the ecclesiology of John Owen, ‘The Church

is the work of the eschatological Spirit […] the Son who institutes and the Spirit who

constitutes’. 20 Although the Church enjoys the privileged status of being the gathering

of the elect people of God and enjoying fellowship with God through Jesus, it will

always remain ontologically as part of the creation.

The fellowship the Church enjoys also exists horizontally between those who have been

gathered by the Spirit. Through the gospel the ‘dividing wall of hostility’ (Eph 2:14)

has been removed and God’s elect can now relate in fellowship and community as

experienced in the Trinity. Gunton sees the communion the Church as an ‘echo’ or a

‘bodying forth’ of ‘the eternal community that God is.’21 This gets to the heart of the

true being of the Church. ‘True being is not impersonal, but is personal in perichoretic

communion because God's being is.’22 The gospel gives rise to the Church as it unites

Christians together, allowing fellowship and communion with each other and with the

triune God.

The Church is the gathered people of God

A second key aspect of the gospel’s relationship to the Church is that it clarifies that

the being of the Church is the gathered people of God. The centrality of the act of

gathering in the works of God makes it the controlling definition of the being of the

Church. It is simply not enough to say the being of the Church is the ‘people of God’.

19
Calvin, Inst. IV.i.5.
20
Gunton, ‘The Church on Earth’, 72-73.
21
Gunton, ‘The Church on Earth’, 75.
22
Doyle, ‘The Evangelical Doctrine of the Church’.

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Scattering in judgement contrasted with gathering in redemption, can be seen as a

pattern of God’s dealing with his creation and his people throughout salvation history.

God’s scattering in judgement can be seen when Adam and Eve are cast out of the

garden and God’s presence (Gen 3:23-24), Cain is driven out for fratricide (Gen 4:14-

16), and the people are scattered at the Tower of Babel (Gen 11:8-9). Doyle notes ‘The

archetypal description of the meaning of destruction of covenantal nationhood is

found in Leviticus 25:33, ‘You will I scatter among the nations’’.23 Scattering in

judgement also becomes a significant theme in exilic theology, particularly in Ezekiel

and Hosea.24

On the other hand God graciously gathers his people and dwells with them as a sign of

his mercy and blessing. God begins the process of gathering a people for himself with

his promises to Abraham (Gen 12: 1-3). As Exodus 19:4 states ‘You yourselves have

seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to

myself.’ 25 God’s calling of people to himself and to one another overcomes the

consequences of sin. This continues with his election of a people for himself (Deut

32:9), a people in whom he will make his children (Ex 4:23), and in whom he will

delight (Is 62:4).26 They are simply to be his and are gathered to be in fellowship with

him. As Torrance notes, ‘in the historical experience of Israel before the Incarnation

the lineaments of the Church began to become manifest as the worshipping people of

God called into being by His Word’.27 This is finally fulfilled and completed in Christ.

23
Robert Doyle, ‘A Response to Graham Cole’s Paper’, in Church, Worship and the Local Congregation:
Explorations 2 (ed. B. G. Webb; Homebush West, N.S.W.: Lancer, 1987), 21.
24
Doyle, ‘The Evangelical Doctrine of the Church’.
25
Doyle, ‘A Response to Graham Cole’s Paper’, 20.
26
Doyle, ‘The Evangelical Doctrine of the Church’.
27
T. F. Torrance, ‘The Foundation of the Church’, The Scottish Journal of Theology. 16.2 (1963): 113-131.
Emphasis mine.

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In Christ, God reconciles sinful and rebellious humanity to himself and he gathers up

his elect (Eph 2:13), removing hostility through the cross (Eph 2:16) and at Pentecost

the Spirit gathers people anew and reverses the judgement of Babel. For these reasons,

it is not enough to describe the Church as the ‘people of God’. This is not a full

description of what God is doing through the gospel of his Son. ‘‘The church’ is not

just another word for Christians, or for the people of God. It is, quite specifically, the

assembly of the people of God.’28

This understanding of the being of the Church stems from the perspective that the

ἐκκλησία is the controlling description of the Church. This is opposed to other

metaphors such as the people of God, the Body of Christ or the Bride of Christ.

ἐκκλησία is often translated as ‘Church’ although its original meaning is more that of

assembly, gathering or congregation.29 Both Cole and Giles question the prominence

of ἐκκλησία. Cole argues that it is to be considered as a ‘subset of the more inclusive

concept of people of God’ and is a logically prior notion to that of Church.30 Both Cole

and Giles contend that this is an ‘individualistic way of thinking’ and that it may lead

‘to a lack of a Christian face towards the world, and with it, social introversion.’31

Doyle responds by asserting that ἐκκλησία ‘best fits the same redeemed corporation in

the New Testament because it has become universalised, heavenly, and more

immediate by the earthly person and work of he who was par excellence the inheritor

28
Robinson, Selected Works, 109.
29
BDAG, 303.
30
Graham Cole, 'The Doctrine of the Church: Towards Conceptual Clarification', in Church, Worship
and the Local Congregation: Explorations 2 (ed. B. G. Webb; Homebush West, N.S.W.: Lancer, 1987), 3-
17. 3.
31
Kevin Giles, What on Earth is the Church? A Biblical and Theological Inquiry. (North Blackburn,
Victoria: Dove, 1995), 14; Cole, ‘The Doctrine of the Church’, 3.

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and fulfiller of the promises made to Abraham.’32 Simply, because Jesus is gathering his

people by the gospel, the gathering of God’s people is the best understanding of the

being of Church.

The Church is an end in itself

The third implication of the relationship between the Church and the gospel is that of

purpose. Because the gospel creates the Church through the work of the Holy Spirit,

the Church is an end in itself. The Church was not created through the gospel simply

to be a means to an end. Its purpose is first and foremost to be the gathered people of

God in restored relationship and fellowship with him and with one another. The

relationship between the gospel and the Church is not reciprocal.

Grenze views the creation of this eschatological community as a final goal of God in

salvation history, ‘a redeemed people dwelling in a renewed earth, enjoying

reconciliation with their God, fellowship with each other, and harmony with all

creation. […] God’s ultimate intention for creation is the establishment of

community.’ 33 The eschatological nature of the Church already gathered to God

around the throne in heaven reveals that the Church is not a stepping stone to

something greater but that it is the something greater to which the creation is

redeemed (Eph 2:6; Rev 21:3).

Although the gospel precedes the Church in an asymmetrical relationship, this is not

all there is to be said about the relationship between the two. As the Church is gathered

32
Doyle, ‘A Response to Graham Cole’s Paper’, 23.
33
Stanley J. Grenze, Theology for the Community of God (Boardman & Holman, 1994; repr., Grand
Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2000), 115.

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together by the gospel it will continue to participate in the gospel mission of God.

Webster observes ‘The church is by virtue of the being and acts of another; and its acts

are enabled by and witness to the one whom the church owes itself and toward whom

it is an unceasing turning.’34 But Webster also notes ‘The Word is not in the church

but announced to the church through Holy Scripture. The church is therefore not first

and foremost a speaking but a hearing community.’ 35 Therefore, because the Church is

created by the gospel, it is not a means to an end but is an end in itself.

This is challenged by Pope Benedict XVI’s understanding of the relationship between

the gospel and the Church. According to Volf, Benedict sees that ‘When the Church

acts, Christ is acting; where Christ acts, the Church is acting.’36 Volf also notices that

for Benedict the Church plays a key role in mediating ‘the gift of faith’ as it receives it

from the Lord.37 This understanding stems from Benedict’s hierarchical understanding

of the Church in its relation to the triune God with the Pope and bishops possessing

‘power as vicars’.38 This follows from understanding that Christ established the Church

through Peter and it was the apostles who fashioned the evangel that grew the Church.

This has been a constant point of conflict between Catholic and Protestant

ecclesiologies. Calvin responds by indicating that ‘all scripture cries out against it’.39

On the issue of keys Calvin writes, ‘Since heaven is opened to us by the doctrine of the

gospel, the word “keys” affords an appropriate metaphor. Now man are bound and

34
Webster, ‘The Visible Attests the Invisible’, in The Community of the Word: Toward and Evangelical
Ecclesiology (ed. Mark Husbands and Daniel J. Treier; Leicester: Apollos, 2005),107.
35
Webster, ‘The Visible Attests the Invisible’, 110-11.
36
Volf, 36.
37
Volf, 36-39.
38
Joseph Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism, and Politics: New Essays in Ecclesiology (New York: Corssroads,
1998), 44.
39
Calvin, Inst. IV.vi.6.

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loosed in no other way than when faith reconciles some to God, while their own

unbelief constrains others the more.’40 For Calvin the gospel precedes the Church.

Another challenge to this position of the being of the Church comes from more recent

missional ecclesiologies. Chester and Timmis assert ‘Church is not a meeting you

attend or a place you enter. It is an identity that is ours in Christ.’41 For Chester and

Timmis, like many missional ecclesiologies, they conclude that ‘The church exists both

through the gospel and for the gospel.’42 Although there is much to commend about

such an outward orientation for Christian people, their ecclesiology suffers from an

over realised eschatology and a conflation of the life of the Christian person and the

life and being of the Church. This is not to say that the Church will have no

involvement in God’s mission to the world. It will be caught up in the works of God

both by its existence in the world and through its continuing proclamation of the

works of God in his Son. This, however, does not define its being because the Church

is an end in itself.

The eschatological existence of the Church

With regards to the existence of the Church, because the gospel creates the Church in

Christ and united to Christ, the Church is an eschatological reality. ‘Because the church

is primarily a Christological entity, it is also an eschatological entity.’43 The current

place of the Christian is described as presently seated in the heavenly realms with

Christ (Eph 2:6) and Hebrews reveals that the promises made to Abraham were

40
Calvin, Inst. IV.vi.4.
41
Tim Chester and Steve Timmis, Total Church: A Radical Reshaping Around Gospel and Community
(Nottingham: Inter-Varsity Press, 2007), 18
42
Total Church, 32.
43
Doyle, ‘The Evangelical Doctrine of the Church’.

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heavenly promises (11:8-10).44 As Knox comments on the Thirty-Nine Articles he

notes ‘Since Christ is now in heaven, it is there that the NT [sic] thinks of him as

building his church, because the church of Christ is the assembly which he calls into

being around himself.’45 The gospel is gathering the Church around the throne of God

in heaven. This is the future eternal hope and current location of the Church’s

existence. This encapsulates the ‘now and not yet’ eschatological tension experienced

by the Church.

The gospel creates not only a heavenly reality but also the earthly existence of the

Church.46 Calvin observes ‘Where we see the Word of God purely preached and heard,

and the sacraments administered according to Christ’s institution, there, it is not to be

doubted, a church of God exists’.47 This is a fundamental assertion of Article Nineteen

of the Thirty-Nine Articles: ‘The visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful

men, in the which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments be duly

ministered according to Christ’s ordinance in all those things that of necessity are

requisite to the same…’ The Church, as an eschatological entity created by the gospel,

manifests itself in time and space when Christian people gather together around the

Word of God. Knox sees this as not only an outworking of the gospel but a duty.48

The connection between the two existences of the Church is important to articulate.

As O’Brien reviews key New Testament images for the Church he observes that:
44
Doyle, ‘The Evangelical Doctrine of the Church’.
45
D. Broughton Knox, Selected Work (ed. Kirsten Birkett; 2 vols.; Kingsford , N.S.W.: Matthias Media,
2003), 2:141. Emphasis mine.
46
The concept of a general Church of all the Christians on earth at any one time has been a fundamental
tenant of ecumenical movements of the twentieth century. This idea of a general church has not been
included in the discussion of the existence of the Church because it does not fit within the definition of the
Church as the gathered people of God.
47
Calvin, Inst. IV.i.8.
48
Knox, Selected Works, 141.

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 ‘the earthly entity is best regarded as a manifestation of the heavenly reality, for

example a heavenly gathering around Christ, a heavenly temple, or the body of

Christ in heaven. The New Testament, however, does not precisely designate the

relationship between the two as a ‘manifestation’, although it certainly rules out

the possibility of the earthly entity as a ‘part’ of some universal or heavenly

reality.’ 49

The Thirty-Nine Articles make it clear that the local gathering is a full expression of

the Church even though it does not constitute the full number of those elect in Christ.

Calvin also asserts ‘The church universal is a multitude gathered from all nations […]

Under it are this included individual churches, disposed in towns and villages

according to human need, so that each rightly has the same name and authority of the

church.’50 The claim to authenticity and authority of the Church was essential for the

Reformation Churches assertion of their own apostolicity and legitimacy but was also a

helpful movement toward an understanding of the local gathering as an authentic

Church. It removed notions of a ‘graded hierarchy’ or that the earthly Church was

merely a platonic form of the eternal idea of the true heavenly Church. Knox also

helps to articulate the relationship between the heavenly gathering and the earthly

gathering insisting that they are not ‘two fellowships or two gatherings […] but they

are the same fellowship’.51 The words of Jesus also assure us of the validity of the earthly

gathering as the Church, as he affirms that he is present with them (Matt 18:20).

49
P. T. O’Brien. ‘The Church as a Heavenly and Eschatological Entity’, 116.
50
Calvin, Inst.IV.i.9.
51
Knox, Selected Work, 2:21.

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In conclusion, because the gospel precedes and creates the Church, the Church is able

to enjoy fellowship with God in Christ and with one another. It does this as a creature

that is essentially gathered to God through Jesus as an end in itself. This gathering is

eschatological, the Church is now constituted in Christ in heaven as well as wherever

God’s people are gathered together by his gospel. This displays of the glory and

faithfulness of God as he gathers his Church to be his treasured possession.

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