No reformation since apostolic times has covered all this ground.  All the reformations taken together fall far short of this standard.  They have been reformations only in part, each movement simply placing special emphasis on particular doctrines, or ordinances, or personal experiences.  Hence the need of further reformation.  The present movement embraces all the truth contained in all the previous reformations of Protestantism.  But it does not stop there.  It stands committed to all the truth of the Word of God.  It goes straight to the heart of the reformation subject and reveals the pure, holy, universal church of the apostolic times as made up of all those who were regenerated, uniting them all in Christ; in the “church of the living God,” which church was “the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15); the church that was graced with the gifts of the Spirit and filled with holy power.

The true apostolic church has been largely lost to view since the early Christian centuries, when a general apostasy dimmed the light of truth and plunged the world into the darkness of papal night.  In modern times the term “church” as applied to a general body of religious worshipers is usually employed in a restricted sense, specifying some particular organization, as the hierarchy of Rome or the aggregation of local congregations constituting a Protestant sect.  By a natural reaction from the Romish extreme, wherein the church and church relationship are exalted above the personal relationship of the individual with his God, many teachers now incline to an opposite extreme, which makes little of the church as an institution, substituting therefor a sort of “loyalty to Christ,” individualism, subversive of true New Testament standards.

[Sidenote:  The true church Scripturally important]

The church is not to be exalted above the Christ, nor is it a substitute for the Christ; but in the light of New Testament teaching we must regard the true church as the instrument—­the divinely appointed instrument used by the Holy Spirit in carrying forward the work of Christ on earth.  Jesus himself said, “Upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18).  At a later time we read, “And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved” (Acts 2:47).

If Paul were living today, he also might despise the “church” idea in its narrow sectarian sense.  But from the apostle’s words, it is very evident that he regarded the church as it existed in his day as an institution crowned with glory and honor, the concrete expression of Christ and his truth. “God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues” (1 Cor. 12:28).  “And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ; till we all come in the unity of the faith ... that we ... may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, [of the body, the church, Col. 1:18] even Christ” (Eph. 4:11-15).