The Attributes of the Church

Christians have used wide-ranging language to describe the church and its nature. But
from the time of the Council of Constantinople in AD 381, Christians have used four attributes to
describe the Church: One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic.

The Church is one

The Church is one entity. It is one body. Christ, being the head of the body, is the source
and support of the parts of the body. The church is one and indivisible. It is ontologically one.
Christ prayed for the unity of the church (John 17:21). Apostle Paul wrote that the church is one
because it has one God, one faith, one baptism, etc. (Eph. 4:4-6). The Baptism of the Holy Spirit
forms this one body and unites all kinds of people in one body. There is an essential unity in the
church despite of functional differences (Gal. 3:27-28). Mark Dever rightly asserts, “The church
is one and is to be one because God is one. Christians have always been characterized by their
unity (Acts 4:32). The unity of Christians in the church is to be a property of the church, and a
sign for the world reflecting the unity of God himself.”1 Thus, the unity of the church is an
essential mark of a church.

The Church is Holy

The Church is not only One but also Holy. It is washed by the blood of the Lamb and
purchased by God himself (Acts 20:28). Edmund Clowney rightly concurs, “The church that is to
be one in the Spirit, united to Jesus Christ, and one in the faith, holding to the purity of the
apostolic gospel, must also be God’s holy people on earth, growing in likeness to Christ, and
transcending worldly divisions as the beginning of a new humanity in Christ.”2 The Church is the
holy temple of God (Eph. 2:21) in whom the triune God resides.

1
Mark Dever, A Theology for the Church (Tennessee: B&H Academic, 2007), 999.

2
Edmund P. Clowney, The Church: Contours of Christian Theology (Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1995), 67.
The Church is Catholic
The church is catholic, meaning, it is composed of all kinds of people, tribes, tongues,
places, etc. it does not belong to one segment or group of people. Mark Dever notes, “The church
is universal and is to be universal because God is the Lord of all the earth, he further, notes, “The
church is universal then in that it stretches across space and time.””3 And Robert Letham
observes, “The church is international, found throughout the world.” He continues, “Paul stresses
this as a key element of the gospel, especially in Ephesians 2, but it also underlies Galatians,
Romans, and the rest of his corpus. John’s vision in Revelation 7:9–17 expresses it vividly. This
is a warning against identifying national interests with the gospel.”4

The Church is Apostolic

The church is founded on the Apostles and Prophets (Eph. 2:20). The Apostolic doctrine
is the foundation of the church, anyone straying away from it is wandering away from
orthodoxy. Edmund Clowney maintains, “The church carries the apostolic gospel down through
the centuries and around the globe. What it bears is neither a memory of the gospel enshrined in
tradition, nor a new gospel, appropriate to a later age, but the apostolic gospel, recorded in the
inspired words of the New Testament.”5

Metaphors and Images of the Church

3
Mark Dever, A Theology for the Church (Tennessee: B&H Academic, 2007), 1000.

4
Robert Letham, Systematic Theology (Illinois: Crossway, 2019), 739.

5
Edmund P. Clowney, The Church: Contours of Christian Theology (Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1995), 60.
 The New Testament uses ample of images and metaphors to describe the church of God.
Such is the beauty of the church that the New Testament authors employ numerous contours to
explain the glorious nature of the church. Paul S. Minear estimates the number of New
Testament images referring to the church “conservatively” at more than 80 and adds that the
number could easily be increased to 100 if the different Greek words were counted separately. 6
Space precludes us to look at all the metaphors but we will delve on the following four
metaphors: body of Christ, temple of God, people of God, and bride of Christ.

Body of Christ
Body of Christ is arguably the beloved metaphor which Apostle Paul employs to describe
the nature of church. Apostle Paul uses this metaphor in 1 Cor. 12 and Romans 12: 3-5 to stress
the unity of the body and the headship of Christ. Paul also employs this metaphor to teach our
union with Christ and with one another.

Temple of God
Apostle Paul uses this image to establish the fact that the Triune God dwells in the
church. The God-head resides in the people of God. Paul reminds the Corinthians in 1 Cor.6:19
“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you
have received from God? You are not your own. The pronoun “you” is plural in Greek,
therefore, Apostle Paul is stressing the fact that God resides in the entire body (which is referred
to as a temple here) rather than the individuals.

People of God
The Phrase “People of God” was used for the nation Israel in the Old Testament and it is
also employed to the New Testament church. However, there is a significant difference in both
the usage. When it is employed for Israel, it primarily refers to their ethnic identity. Whereas,
when it is employed to the church, the church’s redemption is in view (Eph. 2:19-22; 1 Pet. 2:9-
10). God views the church as a people who were bought by his own blood to declare his glories.
They are his people because he transferred them from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of
light (Col. 1:13; 1 Pet. 2:9-10).

6
Paul S. Minear, Images of the Church in the New Testament (Kentucky: WJK Press, 2004), 28.
 Gregg Allison argues otherwise and maintains, “…human beings as redeemed by God are
his people. This image, then, relates to Abraham and the patriarchs; the faithful remnant of
Israel; Simeon and Anna, who beheld the infant Jesus; and genuine Christians in the church—to
single out some examples. In a redemption sense, all people who have experienced salvation
through the good news are rightly the people of God.”7 Gregg Allison argues that there is only
one people of God: the Nation Israel is the Old Covenant People of God and the church is the
New Covenant people of God. It seems he is purporting that both Israel and church are
technically called “the people of God” in the Bible.
It is true that the church is called “the people of God” in the New Testament but that does
not give us a warrant to view the church as technically “the people of God.” Timothy Miller
righty contends, “It is better to see the church as partaking of similar blessings as those promised
to Israel. The original recipients will receive what they were promised, but God has given the
same blessings to Gentiles to drive the Jews to jealousy (Rom 11:14).”8 He further reasons, “The
church, then, is analogous to Israel. And since both are the people of God, both share common
characteristics of God’s blessing.”9 The New Testament uses similar language which was used
for the Nation Israel in the Old Testament but that does not give us a license to merge two
distinct entities: The Nation Israel and The New Testament Church. An analogy does not
necessitates an allegory.

Bride of Christ
Christ is the Bridegroom who will marry the church one day when she will be presented to him
as a pure virgin. Christ will marry the church when he returns to receive her. Marriage between a

7
Gregg Allison, The Church: An Introduction, edited by Graham A. Cole & Oren R. Martin (Illinois:

Crossway, 2021), 24.

8
Timothy Miller, “Introduction to 1 Peter” (course notes, Community Bible Church, Trenton, Michigan),

32.
9
Ibid.
husband and a wife should reflect this mysterious relationship between Christ and its bride (Eph.
5:25-33).