Are Church Members the Church Only When They Are Assembled?

An assembly is visible only.  You walk into a room and no one is in there, and you would be right to conclude there is no assembly.   An assembly is people and people are visible.  Let's say that you had a group that met in the hotel banquet hall.  You saw someone at the park and he asked, "Are you in that group in the hotel banquet hall?"  You say, "No, I'm in the park.  I'm only  in that group when that group meets."  Somehow he thinks you're in the group, even when it isn't meeting.  That's a legitimate thought.  It's also a scriptural thought.  Furthermore, the people who are the members of the assembly become so by means of, first, true conversion and, second, baptism by immersion into the assembly.  The ekklesia of the New Testament is more than just a gathering.  There are other dimensions to it beyond people in close proximity to one another, potentially not practicing social distancing.

I said this a few posts back:

A church must meet or gather.  Right now our church is not gathering, but there is the assumption that it will, just like there is the assumption that it will when it's not meeting on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.  Even when it isn't meeting, the church, however, is still the church.  The church is the church when sermons are livestreamed on youtube.  That's still our Assembly out there, the Congregacion of Tyndale's New Testament.  Some might ask, is this church?  Yes, it is church, because it is still church even when it isn't meeting.  This assumes still that the church will meet, and our church will meet.

Perhaps my former seminary professor, Thomas Strouse, directed the following to me in his newsletter, dated April 30:

Saucy states, “Ekklesia also designates the universal church. In this usage the concept of a physical assembly gives way to the spiritual unity of all believers in Christ. Ekklesia in this sense is not the assembly itself but rather those constituting it; they are the church whether actually assembled or not. This is clearly evident in the early persecution of the church at Jerusalem. Even when believers are scattered abroad and in their homes, they are ‘the church’ (Acts 8:1-3).” Robert L. Saucy, The Church in God’s Program (Chicago: Moody Press, 1972), pp. 16-17. He failed to recognize that they were baptized church members and became the assembly only when they assembled. In this verse, the term “church” is the figure of speech (“synecdoche”) wherein the whole represents the part (“church” = church member). . . . Shades of Ignatius!

Alright, so was I right in the post a week or so ago about that being the church out there listening in a livestream, even though they aren't visibly assembled?  Does this justify universal church teaching?  Strouse is writing that it does.  Am I even saying anything different than Strouse himself is arguing against Saucy in that paragraph?  Maybe Strouse could use a better argument against Saucy's point.

I don't really want a conflict with Strouse.  I love Dr. Strouse.  We're both local only in our ecclesiology.  We don't see eye to eye in every aspect of it, but we both believe that the church is local only.  No one would think I'm less Baptist than he is, probably more than he. Strouse writes: "they were baptized church members and became the assembly only when they assembled."  This is a case of reading something into the text.  There isn't a single verse that says that the assembly is only the assembly when it is assembled.  I'd like to start with the passage to which he refers, starting in Acts 8:1.  It doesn't help his point.

And Saul was consenting unto his death. And at that time there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judaea and Samaria, except the apostles.

The church, all of its members except for the apostles, were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.  A church member was still the church, even when he was scattered.  He wasn't invisible.  He was in Judea and in Samaria.  He wasn't assembled in Jerusalem.  According to scripture, the church scattered is still the church.  Acts 8:3 then reads:

As for Saul, he made havock of the church, entering into every house, and haling men and women committed them to prison.

Was Saul making havock only of assembled members?  Remember, Strouse says it isn't the church unless it is assembled.  Paul went into every house to hale men and women, not the assembly of men and women.  The havock on the church occurred when the members were in their own homes.  This doesn't make room for a universal church. They were still from the assembly in Jerusalem, so the Jerusalem church was the one upon which Saul was making havock.

An example of a "synecdoche" is "Cleveland won by six runs," and "Cleveland" means "Cleveland's baseball team."  Strouse is saying that this is a similar figure, "the church" means "individual church members."  "Synecdoche" is a fancy sounding figure of speech, so technical that it sounds like someone might be on to something.  For the sake of how he is arguing, Strouse must have "the church" not be those individual members that Paul is dragging out of their homes, so he calls "the church" a figure of speech.  It would be very helpful if Strouse could point to other usages like that in the New Testament.  His problem, I believe, is that he wouldn't find any others comparable to the one he says is synecdoche.

"The church" isn't a "synecdoche" in Acts 8:3. "The church which was at Jerusalem" is "the church which was at Jerusalem."  It doesn't become a figure of speech suddenly in verse 3.  Strouse doesn't need to do this to dispose of Saucy and his attempt to read in a universal church.  Actually, both Saucy and Strouse are stretching.

The problems aren't going to stop with the point of view that "the church isn't the church except when it assembles."  I agree that a church must assemble.  It's not an assembly if it doesn't assemble.  However, scripture doesn't indicate that it is only the church only when it assembles.

In Acts 9:31, when the churches were "were walking in the fear of the Lord," that didn't mean that they were walking in the fear of the Lord only during the very moments they were assembling.  Neither were "the churches" all synecdoches, figures of speech.

Acts 14:27 reads:  "And when they were come, and had gathered the church together."  If the church wasn't the church unless it was gathered, this verse would be redundant.  The church was gathered together there because it was the church when it wasn't gathered together.  The overseeing of "the flock" in Acts 20:28 occurred not only when the flock was assembled.  Offense was not to be given to the church, whether assembled or not (cf. 1 Cor 10:32).  It's unassembled members were still the church.  Paul says he "persecuted the church of God" (1 Corinthians 15:9), and he wasn't doing that mainly when the assembly was assembled.  In Ephesians 1:22, Christ is the head of the assembly in Ephesus even when it isn't assembled.  The church is subject to Christ always (Eph 5:24), not just when it is meeting.  The ruling of the church of God is compared to the ruling of a man's own house, which is not just when it's members are assembling (1 Tim 3:5, 15).  Does the church only relieve widows when it assembles? (1 Timothy 5:16).

The essence of a church is that it assembles.  It isn't an assembly without assembling.  When great fear falls upon the church, that doesn't mean that it only falls during an assembling.  The members of the church are still the church, even when the church isn't assembling.  Jesus special presence, yes, is promised when the church gathers, but Jesus also said to the church in Matthew 28:20, "I am with you alway," you plural.

Strouse writes:  "Many Baptist pastors seem to have forgotten their calling from the Lord Jesus Christ to be the bishop (overseer) of their respective assembled assembly."  To Strouse, isn't saying "assembled assembly" sort of like saying "pizza pie"?  "Pizza" is the Italian word for "pie," so that someone is saying, "pie pie."  Why would someone say "assembled assembly" if he didn't think that the assembly wasn't overseen even when it wasn't assembled?  Strouse seems to believe in his heart what I'm arguing.  The assembly still has to assemble, the assembling of ourselves together (Heb 10:24-25), which means sometimes it doesn't.

Diverting momentarily from the point of this piece, I add a quotation of Jonathan Mayhew, whom Strouse quotes in his article in support of his view of government:

Here the apostle argues more explicitly than he had before done, for revering, and submitting to, magistracy, from this consideration, that such as really performed the duty of magistrates, would be enemies only to the vile actions of men, and would befriend and encourage the good; and so be a common blessing to society.

Some churches are not meeting (some assemblies are not assembling), because they see the "shelter-in-place" as befriending and encouraging the good and a common blessing to society. My elderly parents live with me and I think our compliance has helped them and others like them to live.  This isn't the time for our church to help kill more people and further burden the hospitals.  I can respect some of those churches that take some different tact.  I think we'll know the time for our assembly to assemble again.