Christ's Glorious Church

This sermon deals with the statement in the Nicene Creed: "We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church." A chief scriptural basis is the Ephesian 2 passage. The realty that stands out from this passage is that the former separation of Jews and Gentiles has been eliminated by the work of Christ on the cross. Now the hostility between them has been "killed" and they form a new humanity in the church. This unity of all believers is closely connected to the fact that the church is "catholic," that it consists of all true believers present, past, and future. This church is a "holy" church because God has separated it's people from the world to himself and placed his Holy Spirit in their hearts. It is an apostolic church in the sense that it is founded upon the doctrine of the apostles in the New Testament - not on "apostolic succession" of hands being laid on bishops from one generation to another. Only God himself could have done what has happened - people of radically different backgrounds and races brought together in one loving, caring fellowship.