By the impartation of spiritual life to believers and by the agency of the Holy Spirit operating in the apostles as special agents appointed to do his work, Christ built his church on earth.  There was a building of the church, then, which pertained specifically to its local and visible development among men.  The expression “I will build” indicates the transcendent element, the divine element, in church organization.  This being true, it follows that the local church was not merely an aggregate of individuals accidently gathered together, but was the local, concrete embodiment of the spiritual body of Christ; the unified company of regenerated persons who, as a body, were dedicated to Christ, acknowledged of Christ, and used by Christ through the Holy Spirit for the accomplishment of his work.  Jerusalem furnishes the first example, dating from Pentecost (Acts 2).

[Sidenote:  Particular example:  Corinth]

That this is, generally speaking, the Scriptural definition of a local church of God, is further shown by another particular example.  Paul addressed two of his epistles “to the church of God which is at Corinth” (1 Cor. 1:  2; 2 Cor. 1:  1).  As individuals they are called “saints” and “brethren,” but collectively as a church they are called “the church of God” and referred to as “God’s building” (1 Cor. 3:  9).  And the apostle says to them, “Know ye not that ye are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” (verse 16, R.V.).  They had been inducted by the Spirit into the “one body,” and they were filled with the gifts of the Spirit—­wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, discernment, and tongues (chap. 12).  In fact, the apostle said, “Ye come behind in no gift” (chap. 1:  7).  And he said particularly, “Ye are the body of Christ” (chap. 12:  27).

A true local church, then, was the concrete embodiment of the spiritual body of Christ in a given place.  It was the body of Christ because it was made up of the people of God, manifested the power of God, was the repository of the truth of God, was filled with the gifts of the Spirit of God, and was actually used by the Spirit in performing the works of God.  Such characteristics made it “the church of God.”

[Sidenote:  Local membership]

Membership in the general body of Christ was conditioned solely on the new birth, or salvation.  Since the individual church was the local embodiment of the general church, none but the saved could properly become members thereof, and all who were truly saved (in the same locality) belonged to it by divine right.  At this point, however, the human element in the constitution of the local church became manifest.  We have pointed out the divine element in the true church—­the element that particularly distinguished it as the church of God, but the bringing together of many individuals in one assembly involved also a social element and