Fount and foundation: The Trinity and the mission of the church

Abstract

The foundation of the mission of the church, frequently described in terms of the task presented in New Testament commission texts or as necessary consequences of other biblical texts, is better described in terms of its relationship to the triune God. Proper recognition of how the church relates to the perfect, triune God requires first recognizing that all the works of God are indivisible, second that the biblical witness requires us to appropriate certain aspects of that work to the three persons of the Trinity. Following these dogmatic guidelines gives better purchase on biblical metaphors for the church as the people of God, the body of Christ, and the temple of the Holy Spirit, which serve to train the church in the manner in which it carries out its mission of witness to the world.

Introduction

God himself, in his replete life inner life, is the fount and foundation of the mission of the church. Because he is the One from whom are all things, the church has its source in him. Because he is the One to whom all things are ordered, the church has its end in him. Though generally true of creation, this bears uniquely on the church because the church is the society of redeemed, rational beings, elected by God for fellowship with himself. Further, the church is the means through which God himself and his gospel are made known among the rebellious faction of creation.

Theologies of mission, which often take their rise in discussion of the narrative of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation, too often fail to anchor a theology of the church and its mission to its deepest dogmatic moorings, namely, God himself. This is in part a consequence of the divisions within theological studies. Missiologists and systematicians do not frequently inhabit the same space. The caricature of missiologists is of biblically-minded sociologists concerned with the practicalities of the work of the church in diverse cultural settings; that of systematicians is of book-bound theoreticians discussing conceptual realities that bear little on the daily activities of the saints in the world—and never the twain shall meet. However, the practical work of the church on mission must take its cue from what God has made the church to be. That requires following a precise course, starting with God in himself and then moving out towards the church and its mission. As Newbigin (2006: 9) so memorably put it, ‘If the vision is right, we shall know how to act.’

The purpose of the present essay is not to provide a wholesale correction, but merely to indicate a way forward. Rather than offering an expansive account of trinitarian doctrine, the argument begins with the bare outlines of God’s triune perfection and freedom. This sketch frames the subsequent discussion of the church in relation to the One who is the Alpha and Omega, source and end, of its existence and work. It then moves to consider the nature of the church in relation to God according to three biblical metaphors: the people of God, the body of Christ, the temple of the Holy Spirit. Finally, in conversation with two theologians of mission, Lesslie Newbigin and Timothy Tennent, the fourth section explains what it means for the church to be sent by this God, demonstrating that the surest footing for a theology of the church’s mission is trinitarian doctrine.

A Dogmatic Foundation

In himself, the triune God is complete. Utterly sufficient, he has no lack. Existing eternally in the relations of Father, Son, and Spirit, the one God simply is perfect plenitude. This means that God is free with respect to creation. The created world has no real bearing on God since it adds nothing to him; he is not deficient without it (Webster, 2016b: 107). He is the living God, whether or not he shares that life with others. And, being wholly distinct from the world, he is free to be fully involved in creation without any thought of creation having an effect (modifying) God in any way (Wittman, 2016: 155–156). He who is full, who is perfect in himself, is free to share his fullness with his creatures and invite them to participate in his perfection. As this God, he creates in freedom and unbounded love, willing that there be a created reality other than himself upon which he might bestow the riches of his grace.

In relation, therefore, to the replete and perfect life of the Trinity, the church (referring here to the universal church, implications for local churches will be teased out at a later point) discovers its place within the triune God’s plan and works. Because this God wills it to be so, the church’s mission is a part of (indeed an integral ingredient of) the mission of God as a necessary (insofar he wills it to be so) component in his purpose to create and redeem a people for his own possession. This does not functionalize the church. It exists as more than a means by which God accomplishes his work, for it is also an end. As the gathered elect of God, the church is his temple into which people are called, redeemed, and sanctified to commune with him (see 1 John 1:3) (Kimble, 2018: 69). Such communion is his eternal purpose, carried out in the history of creation and redemption. ‘I will dwell with them, and they will be my people’ (Revelation 21:3; cf. Exodus 25:8; Leviticus 26:11–13; 2 Corinthians 6:16–18). But this demands a question: what is the nature of the church as it exists in relationship to the triune God? We will go about answering this question by discussing how the church relates to the three persons of the Trinity.

Describing the church in seemingly separate relationships with Father, Son, and Spirit could tend towards tritheism and a denial (or, more pragmatically, a simple ignoring) of the fact that ‘when the Trinity acts, there is only one action, not three’ (Teer, 2020: 537). May it never be! There are (at least) two guardrails that prevent such errors. ¹

First, the opera Trinitatis ad extra sunt indivisa (the external works of the Trinity are undivided). This means that in his every work, the triune God acts. No division of labor exists in which one person, say, the Father, dusts his hands (so to speak) and turns the project over to the Son. All the works of the triune God—creation, redemption, sanctification, glorification—are the works of the one God. This trinitarian ‘rule’ is a function of the doctrine of simplicity. ‘The three persons,’ writes Barrett (2021), ‘are undivided in their external works because they are undivided in their internal nature’ (p. 291, emphasis original). What may appear on the surface to be separate ‘sets of activities’ undertaken by the three persons of the Trinity in fact ‘originate from a single, though differentiated, agency’ (Vidu, 2021: 12).

Second, it is also true that each divine person acts ‘according to the distinctive trait that characterizes him’ (Emery, 2011: 162). The mode of action of each person corresponds to their mode of being (Swain, 2020: 99–100; cf. 109). As a development of this, the doctrine of appropriation explains how certain divine acts are attributed to one divine person because said acts have a true affinity with the distinctive mode of being of that person. Thus Paul can speak of the Father as the author of the divine decree (Ephesians 1:4–5), not because in this he acts apart from the Son and the Spirit, but because, as the one whose personal mode of being is to be unbegotten, the work ad extra of predestining (or authoring) belongs to, or is appropriated to, the Father. The Son, whose personal mode of existence is that of being begotten by the Father, is the one to whom the work of accomplishing redemption is appropriated (Ephesians 1:7). The Spirit, whose personal mode of existence is that of being spirated by Father and Son, applies and perfects the triune work (Ephesians 1:13–14) (Emery, 2011: 164–168; Swain, 2020: 110–113).

With this dogmatic foundation in place, how might we describe the nature and mission of the church?

The Trinity and the Church

Three important images of the church—the church as the people of God, the body of Christ, and the temple of the Holy Spirit—reveal their theological depth when read within the bounds of the dogmatic account offered above. Each image links the church directly to each member of the Trinity, yet in such a fashion that making the connection does not cross established dogmatic boundaries. The present section focuses on the identity of the church. The next section will unpack why these images of the church are important for understanding its mission in the world.

The Father and the Church

The plan to accomplish the purposes for which the world exists is appropriated to the Father. As the one who is properly source (i.e. he begets and is not begotten), the Father authors and initiates the plan. He planned to save a people (Ephesians 1:4–5). He sent his Son in the fullness of time to redeem the elect as his own adopted children (Galatians 4:5). Along with the Son, he sends the Spirit into his adopted children’s hearts so that they call on him as Father (Romans 8:14–16; Galatians 4:6; cf. John 15:26; 16:7). As the fons totius divinitatis (the source of the Trinity), the Father is fittingly the source of the plan to redeem a people for his own possession, the church. It is he who chooses, predestines, and blesses the church in Christ (Ephesians 1:3–5). It is to him that all things are ordered (Romans 11:36; 1 Corinthians 15:28). ‘Missions,’ writes Tennent (2010), ‘is ultimately the work of the triune God, initiated by God the Father for His eternal glory’ (p. 76).

The description of the church as the ‘people of God’ indicates this relationship. In Ephesians 2:19, the Apostle writes, ‘So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God’ (emphasis added) that is, those who have been brought into his family. In this household, Jews and Gentiles, united in Christ, draw near through Christ in the Spirit to the Father (Ephesians 2:18). As the Father is their source, so he is their end (Emery, 2011: 174). Paul reminds the Ephesian believers that they were formerly ‘separated from Christ’ and ‘without God’ (Ephesians 2:12). In contrast to their former state, their present condition is one of union with Christ and proximity to God the Father. Thus, the Ephesian church receives the all-important reminder that the primary spiritual blessings they obtain are reconciliation to the Father and adoption as his children (Ephesians 2:16). ‘The whole core of biblical history,’ Newbigin (2008) argues, ‘is the story of the calling of a visible community to be God’s own people’ (p. 27).

The church is therefore a creature of the Father’s grace. ‘It was not common honor,’ John Calvin writes, ‘that the heavenly Father bestowed on us, when he adopted us as his children. . . . For why are we sons? Even because God began to love us freely, when we deserved hatred rather than love’ (Calvin, 1855: 202; Webster, 2016b: 183–84; cf. Newbigin, 2008: 62). So, the church is adopted into triune fellowship as sons and daughters of the heavenly Father. It draws ‘its substance’ from ‘the love of the eternal Father, the unoriginated origin of all things, who elects and adopts creatures into fellowship through the person and saving acts of the eternal Son’ (Webster, 2016b: 185). From him the church receives existence that it might display his wisdom and result in his glory (Ephesians 3:10, 21).

The Son and the Church

The church exists as a result of the sending of the Son. The Father chose the church to be the bride of the Son; he sent the Son to redeem it. As such the work of redemption is appropriated to the Son. As the eternally begotten Son, it is fitting that new life for creatures should come through his work. Through the Son, many sons are brought to glory (Hebrews 2:10). It is he who gives his life to ‘[ransom] a people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation’ (Revelations 5:9). The Son’s mission results in his glorification and his being set by the Father as ‘head over all things to the church’ (Ephesians 2:22; cf. Colossians 1:18).

The description of the church as the body of Christ is particularly important here. Having completed his saving work, God set Christ up as the head of the church, which is ‘his body’ (Ephesians 1:23, emphasis added). This is not merely an analogy. It constitutes the actual identity of the church (Behr, 2004: 72). Paul insists on this identification (Romans 12:5; Ephesians 5:23). Because the existence of the church depends on the completed work of Christ—it is as his body in union with him that the church obtains the blessings of relationship with God—its life is ontologically related to the Son’s, indispensably united to him according to his free and gracious act (Webster, 2016b: 185). ²

The Holy Spirit and the Church

The church exists as a result of the sending of the Holy Spirit. It is with the promise of the Spirit that Jesus sends his disciples into the world (John 20:21–22). He does not leave them as orphans but sends ‘another Helper . . . even the Spirit of truth’ to be with them and indwell them (John 14:16–17). They are to wait for the Spirit—‘the promise of [the] Father’ who descends on the disciples at Pentecost—before they go out as witnesses from Jerusalem to the nations (Luke 24:47–49; Acts 1:5, 8; cf. Acts 2:1–4 and Peter’s explanation of the event in vv. 16–18. Bock, 1996: 1942–1943). The launching forth of the church only takes place once the Paraclete comes. It is by the Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life, that believers confess Christ as Lord (1 Corinthians 12:3), are united to him as his body (1 Corinthians 12:13), and are formed as the temple of God (Ephesians 2:21–22).

This last metaphor is particularly important. The Spirit builds the church as the temple of God, that is, as his dwelling place (Ephesians 2:22). In the Old Testament sanctuaries (tabernacle, temple) God dwelt among his people. Before those structures and in them they communed with God and he with them. With the coming of Christ and the gift of the Spirit, the Old Testament form, which anticipates God’s great purpose in creation, is fulfilled in the church. The Spirit makes his dwelling with the disciples (both individually and corporately). ³ By that indwelling of the Spirit, the Father and the Son are present to believers and believers experience communion with the triune God. This is the fellowship with God for which humanity was appointed. The church as temple depicts this ontological reality. The dwelling of God is with humanity by the Spirit through the work of Christ. ‘Through the Spirit it comes about that there exists a temporal, cultural, bodily reality in fulfillment of the divine appointment: “You shall be my people”’ (Webster, 2016b: 187; cf. Clowney, 1973: 186).

Not Three, but One

The New Testament describes the church in relationship with the triune God as the people of God, the body of Christ, and the temple of the Holy Spirit. The trinitarian work of reconciliation is ‘deeply grounded in the eternal purpose of the Father, who wills creatures for fellowship [with himself]. This purpose is then established by the Son, who . . . reconciles us to God,’ and this work is applied by the Spirit (Kimble, 2018: 77). Theology proper is the starting point of ecclesiology and, therefore, the foundation for understanding the church’s nature and mission. ⁴

The Sent Church

What the church does is directly related to what the church is (Newbigin, 2006: 11). Just as ‘God’s apostolic movement into the world is not a second step alongside who he actually is in and for himself,’ so too the ‘missionary existence [of the church] is not a second step . . . but a determination and commission given with her being’ (Flett, 2010: 241, 265). In his freedom, God wills that he be himself for the world. ⁵ And he wills that there exist a church through which the elect come to know and love him. This leads to two conclusions. First, the church exists for and in relation to the triune God and his purposes in the world. Second, therefore, the church’s mission is based on who God is and what his purposes in the world are. The descriptions of the church as the people of God, the body of Christ, and the temple of the Holy Spirit provide rich reservoirs which may sustain fruitful trinitarian reflection on the mission of the church. In the previous section, we focused on what these images indicate about the nature of the church. In the present section we turn to consider the ways they inform the church’s mission.

Sent as the people of God

Not only does the church find its source in the Father, its purpose for existing remains an integral component of his plan to bring in the elect from humanity. In his narrative concerning the early church, Luke magnifies the Father as the primary actor behind the spread of the gospel to the ends of the earth (Bock, 2012: 99; quoted in Schreiner, 2022: 30). The Father’s purpose is to unite all things in Christ and so draw them back to himself (Ephesians 1:10). In this work he achieves for humanity the end for which it was designed: that they would be his people, and he would be their God (Jeremiah 32:38). The church is part of this work, engaged not ‘in an enterprise of [its] own choosing or devising’ but ‘invited to participate in an activity of God which is the central meaning of creation itself’ (Newbigin, 2006: 83), namely, that all things might be summed up in the Son to the praise of the Father’s glorious grace.

Accounts of missions with due theological grounding should then begin with God the Father. This leads to an important point for casting a proper vision for the nature of the church and its mission which regulates the church’s understanding of her role and place in the world. The church is under the authority of God. It is not bent on world domination. Nor does it have the freedom to define or pursue its own agenda. The church is the people of God. Newbigin points out that, according to Mark, the beginning of the gospel is the proclamation by Jesus that ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel’ (Mark 1:15). Jesus, anointed by the Spirit of God and declared to be the Son of God by the Father (1:10–11), proclaims the reign of God. For Newbigin, this is both the starting point and telos of missions.

[This] announcement concerns the reign of God—God who is the creator, upholder, and consummator of all that is. We are not talking about one sector of human affairs, one strand out of the whole fabric of world history; we are talking about the reign and the sovereignty of God over all that is, and therefore we are talking about the origin, meaning, and end of the universe and of all human history within the history of the universe. (Newbigin, 1995: 30)

He writes elsewhere that ‘God’s fatherly rule of all things is at the heart of [Jesus’s] teaching. God sustains all, cares for all, rules over all. . . . and directs [all things] according to his will’ (Newbigin, 2006: 39). God’s people are part of his mission. The church is God’s elect people who are sent out under his authority as a means of accomplishing his purposes. To summarize: ‘the Father sends the Son, who . . . sends the church. Thus, all of the commissions are set within the larger context of the missio Dei’ (Tennent, 2010: 157). ⁶

The church should understand itself and describe its mission in terms commensurate with the missio Dei. As the people of God, its mission is not something it can define for itself. In this regard the church must repeat the words of Christ, ‘The Son . . . can [do] only what he sees the Father doing’ (John 5:19). Whatever plans, whatever strategies local churches develop for missions, they should reflect the church’s identity as a people redeemed by God through Christ. Practically, this challenges churches and mission organizations to assess whether the strategies for mission they encourage and support truly reflect this identity. Elected by the Father, the church is the beneficiary of and witness to God’s saving work, both in speech and in act. ⁷ If practices in mission could just as easily reflect a different identity (e.g., that of a government aid agency or the local chapter of a humanitarian society), they should be radically reassessed. Everything the church does in missions should be clearly intended to answer the question ‘To whom do you belong?’ with ‘We are God’s people’ (see 1 Peter 2:10).

Sent as the body of Christ

The church is the body of Christ who is the eternal Son who is the second person of the Trinity. The metaphor communicates an indissoluble union between the risen, reigning Christ and the community which calls upon his name. Two key facets of the metaphor for understanding church missions are unity and witness. In terms of sending, the given unity of the body is expressed on two levels: the local church and the universal church.

Local unity in Christ

As the body of Christ, the church is unified. Credo in . . . unam . . . ecclesiam. According to Paul, this unity is expressed both at the level of the local congregation and the universal church. The ‘one body’ can be used to describe the local congregation (Romans 12:4–8; 1 Corinthians 12:12–31). The Spirit brings about this unity of believers in Christ. Baptized into the same Spirit and drinking of the same Spirit, believers are no longer separated by ethnic or class divisions. They are the one body of Christ and ‘individually members of it’ (1 Corinthians 12:27). Individual believers who are saved by the grace of God are ‘baptized into one body’ in one Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:13, emphasis added). The one body is not a voluntaristic association that comes about by the free decision of believers to associate with one another, as if believers can decide whether to be part of the body of Christ. There is one Christ, therefore there is one body. And baptism entails baptism into that one body. ⁸ The church, then, is prior to the individual (Bavinck, 2003: 280). ⁹ And the church’s mission is one that it must pursue as the church.

This raises a significant point for understanding the sending forth of the church. In an age of relatively easy travel and access to the world, the notion that anyone can be a missionary on their own prerogative is increasingly prevalent (the proliferation of missions agencies, particularly those unattached to specific local churches or denominations, can serve to exacerbate this tendency ¹⁰ ). But is it the case that anyone who wants to be a missionary can and should be a missionary? A theology of church missions ordered by trinitarian doctrine gives primacy of place to the church rather than individualistic patterns of thinking inherited from Western liberal democracies. It should be the church who, under the guidance of the Spirit, sends individuals to pursue the work of missions.

Prioritizing the local church in sending does not eliminate the need for cooperation amongst churches nor the existence of sending agencies to aid the difficult work of sending forth missionaries. Tennent offers a robust biblical and historical examination of the relationship between local churches and sending agencies (what he refers to as ‘modalities’ and ‘sodalities,’ respectively). He concludes that sodalities, while important (even necessary), should not replace local churches nor supplant their authority (see Tennent, 2010: 435–457). Maintaining, both in theory and practice, the local church as the sending institution in the work of missions is a means of honoring the given nature of the church as the body of Christ.

Global unity in Christ

Not only is the body of Christ united in its local expressions, but as the body of Christ it is united in its universal (catholic) expression. Credo in . . . unam . . . catholicam . . . ecclesiam. Again, the source of this unity is not from below, but from above. When Paul describes ‘the church’ as the body of Christ over which Christ is the head (Ephesians 1:22), he is describing the whole church through which the ‘manifold wisdom of God’ is displayed (Ephesians 3:10) (see Dunn, 1992: 161). There is a true unity from above that remains in spite of the variety in the many local expressions of that body. Paul writes, ‘There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all’ (Ephesians 4:4–6).

A focus on the unity of the church formed an important aspect of Newbigin’s missiological thinking. He recognized the importance of a certain ecumenism in missions that expressed the unity which is given the church by (and in) its Founder. This unity, for Newbigin (2006), centered on the question of who Christ is—‘the question of the uniqueness, sufficiency and finality of Jesus Christ as the one Lord and Saviour of the world’ (pp. 17–18, emphasis added; cf. Tennent, 2010: 349). True unity centers on Christ. Bearing this in mind meant Newbigin was both inclusive and exclusive in his formulation of ecumenism. ‘The ecumenical movement remains open to all who confess Jesus Christ as God and Saviour . . . [and] open only to those who confess Jesus Christ as God and Saviour’ (Newbigin, 2006: 19, emphasis original). He recognized that the ecumenical movement faced opposition from those who thought that it compromised on truth and from those who thought its religious exclusivity denied the possibility of unity among mankind. But true unity for mankind is found only in that body where Christ is head.

Witnesses of Christ’s work

As the body of Christ, the church—in both its local and universal expression—witnesses to his work. He is its head. Care must be taken not to conflate the church with Christ. The church is not the ongoing incarnation of the Son in the world, but the witness to that incarnation and all that it entails. Subject to Christ, the church bears witness to his rule and work in the confession that Jesus is Lord (see 1 Corinthians 12:3). What this means in practice is that the church, in all its mission efforts, must guard against a tendency to elevate itself to the position of savior of the world. The church’s job is not to accomplish salvation, redemption, or reconciliation in the world. Its work is to bear witness to the Savior of the world (see 2 Corinthians 5:17–21). That witness will take the form of both word and deed. In its living out all the implications of the gospel in all of life, the church will ‘incarnate’ the gospel it proclaims. Lives reconciled with God entail proper relations with him, with other people, and with creation. But the life which corresponds to the message of reconciliation is, just like the proclamation, an act of witness.

Sent as the temple of the Holy Spirit

The church is the temple of the Holy Spirit. This description taps into roots that run as deep as Genesis 1–2 where God creates humanity in his image, puts them in a garden-temple, and commands them to fill the earth with his progeny. ¹¹ The implicit command is to fill the earth with image-bearers that redound to the glory of God and live in right relationship with him. In other words, expand the garden-temple until the earth is filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea.

The church is this temple in the present age. ¹² It is the construction of the Holy Spirit. This does not divide the work of the Trinity in building the church. It is in Christ that the Spirit builds believers (Clowney, 1973: 183). Christ is the cornerstone of the magnificent edifice which the Spirit is building (Ephesians 2:19–22). United to him, the church is the temple, the place where the boundaries of heaven and earth dissolve, where the Spirit brings people into fellowship with God. The work of two theologians of mission, Lesslie Newbigin and Timothy Tennent, offer an avenue for further reflection on this theme.

Newbigin on the church as temple

For Newbigin, a proper acknowledgement of the work of the Holy Spirit in the church was essential for pursuing missions that were not ultimately anthropocentric. Though he did not focus on the image of the temple in his missiology and ecclesiology, his use of koinonia with the Spirit of God aligns with that emphasis as described above. In his essays on ecclesiology, Newbigin argues that the church must understand itself as the church of the Holy Spirit. After a litany of New Testament texts which demonstrate that the Christian life begins with the Spirit, Newbigin (2008) states, ‘The Holy Spirit is the Church’s life. . . . The Church is, in the most exact sense, a koinonia, a common sharing in the Holy Spirit’ (pp. 89–90). He continues,

Peter, defending his action at Caesarea before his brethren, reminds them of what had happened on the day of Pentecost. ‘The Holy Spirit fell on them, even as on us at the beginning.’ On that day we may say that everything was ready for the Church’s life to begin. Christ’s atoning work had been completed. His revelation of the Father in word and deed was complete. The nucleus of His Church was chosen and ready. . . . All was complete: and yet nothing was complete until the Spirit of God Himself should be breathed into the new race of men. Only then, empowered by Him, could they go forth to proclaim the message of salvation, and to baptize [people] in the Name of Christ unto remission of their sins. In very truth it is the presence of the Holy Spirit that constitutes the Church. (Newbigin, 2008: 90)

This understanding of the central role of the Spirit in constituting the church leads to an important affirmation about the church’s mission. The mission, properly speaking, does not belong to the church. The church does not set its own agenda, neither does it pursue its task on its own. ‘On the contrary, the active agent of mission is a power that rules, guides, and goes before the church: the free, sovereign, living power of the Spirit of God’ (Newbigin, 1995: 56, emphasis added). The church neither exists nor goes forth by its own volition. ‘Wait,’ said Jesus, ‘until you are clothed with power from on high. Only then will you be my witnesses to the ends of the earth’ (see Luke 24:49; Acts 1:8). The Spirit builds, inhabits, and leads the church.

The church’s mission is the work of the Spirit. The Spirit led the early church in its ever-expanding mission from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth (Acts 8:4–5, 27; 11:12–23; 13:2–4; etc.). So too today. The church does not take the mission into its own hands after the early days of the first century. As the churches in Antioch and Jerusalem obeyed the leading of the Spirit (13:2; 15:28), so the church today must remain ever an ‘attentive servant’ as it seeks to follow the Spirit (Newbigin, 1995: 61). Often this will mean that missions move slower than we might like (perhaps especially for churches and missionaries from Western cultures in which efficiency is prioritized, success is determined by numerical progress, and value is placed on high levels of control and predictability). Sometimes it will mean turning aside from what appear as fruitful fields for ministry (as occurred for Paul and his band in Acts 16:6–10). Always it will mean that the church’s posture as it seeks to pursue missions is on its knees with head bowed. To rely on the Spirit means to hearken to the dominical word, which is the same today as in the first century: Wait.

Tennent on the church as temple

Tennent likewise affirms the centrality of the work of the Holy Spirit in the church. He puts the work of the Spirit into three categories: empowering the church for mission, enduing it with authority, and extending the inbreaking of the New Creation though miracles and regenerated lives (Tennent, 2010: 412–413). He summarizes this by describing the Spirit as the ‘central agent in the ongoing unfolding of the missio Dei, enabling the church to experience the realities of the New Creation in the present’ (Tennent, 2010: 431). The Spirit is the central agent who leads the church in its mission in the world to bear witness through word and deed to the redemptive work of God in Christ (Tennent, 2010: 95). The Spirit guides and empowers. The church’s agency in this work is derivative, subordinate. If it is to be faithful to its God, it must rely on the Spirit’s guiding and empowering work.

Like Newbigin, Tennent does not make much of the description of the church as the temple of God. However, what he claims about the role of the Spirit does, in large measure, align with the image. He argues that the Spirit enables the church to experience the realities of the New Creation—he ‘actualizes [it] in the life of the church’—in the present age (Tennent, 2010: 63). The primary reality to which this refers, indeed the telos of the missio Dei (reflected in every instantiation of the temple in Scripture), is the presence of God with his redeemed people (Beale, 2005: 29). This reality obtains in the church. The church is God’s people who have received mercy in Christ (1 Peter 2:10). Given life and inhabited by the Spirit, the church bears witness to the world that God will accomplish his purposes in creation. As it listens to and obeys the Spirit, the church reveals in its life together and in witness to the world that it is the holy community (the New Covenant temple) formed by the very love of God (John 13:34–35; 1 John 4:12–13).

Conclusion: Being Precedes Action

The descriptions of the church as the people of God, the body of Christ, and the temple of the Holy Spirit are more than mere metaphors. They direct the church to its ontological ground, namely, the triune God. Furthermore, they direct it to its purpose, that is, to add its voice to the unbroken anthem of praise that will be life in the new creation. The order is important. The church is the people of God, the body of Christ, the temple of the Holy Spirit. It is and acts thus. What it does in the world is not, to use Flett’s terminology, a second step alongside who it is. In Tennent’s (2010) words, ‘[M]issions must first understand what the church is before it can articulate what the church does’ (p. 64, emphasis original). And once the church understands who/what it is, then it will pursue its task as necessary to its own life (Webster, 2016b: 189). For missions, being precedes action.

The church does not determine its own being nor its own purpose. Rather, by its actions, it reveals what it is. As the elect people of God, the church lives under his sovereign rule and in its life represents that reign to the world. As the body of Christ, the church is that society in which people find reconciliation to God and one another. It is the place where Cain and Abel, that is, those separated by the enmity produced by sin, return to the garden as true brothers and taste of the tree of life. As the temple of the Holy Spirit, the church is a sanctified society that witnesses to the world of the life intended for mankind. It shines as a light in the darkness, reflecting the marvelous light of the perfect, triune God as it beckons the world to give him glory. The desire to faithfully pursue its mission of witness to the world should lead the church to a careful consideration of trinitarian theology, which proves a fruitful (indeed, necessary) starting point for understanding both what the church is and what the church is for.