And it was to this organized or visible church that Jesus gave the ministry of gathering and perfecting the saints. He said to his Apostles: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20). Later, the Apostle Paul would also write: “And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:11-13). If I can put it this way, this visible church is the seedbed in which we are planted, nourished, rooted, protected and grown. You cannot flourish without the church. It’s for this reason that the earliest Christians were wholly committed to this church as though their spiritual lives depended on it (see Acts 2:42, 47). It’s for this reason that Cyprian said: “He can no longer have God for his Father, who has not the church for his mother.” And it’s for this reason the Westminster Confession of Faith rightly says: “[Outside of the visible church] there is no ordinary possibility of salvation.” To neglect it, then, is to neglect the very means the Holy Spirit uses to gather and perfect his people.
