As Christians we look back to discover Jesus’ conception of the Church.  We find it implicit in His life rather than explicit in His teaching.  He was born into the Jewish Church which in His day was organized with its Temple and priesthood at Jerusalem, with its Sanhedrin settling its law and doctrine, with its synagogues with their worship and instruction in every town and a ministry of trained scribes, and with a wider missionary undertaking that was spreading the Jewish faith through the Roman world.  It was a community with its sectarian divisions of Sadducees, Pharisees and the like, but unified by a common devotion to the one God of Israel and His law.  Jesus’ personal faith was born of this Church, grew and kept vigorous by continuous contact with it, and sought to work through its organization, for He taught in the synagogues and the Temple.

Jesus does not seem to have been primarily interested either in the constitution, or the worship, or the doctrine of the Jewish Church.  He criticised the spirit of its leaders, but did not discuss their official positions.  He must have felt that much of the Temple ritual was obsolete, and that many parts of the synagogue services were crude and dull, but He entered into their worship that He might share with fellow believers His expression of trust in His and their God.  He did not invent a new theology, but used the old terms to voice His fuller life with God.  He was primarily interested in the religious experience that lay back of government, worship and creed; and gave Himself to develop it, apparently trusting a vigorous life with God to find forms of its own.  So He never broke formally with the Jewish Church; and even after it had crucified their Master, His disciples are found worshipping in its Temple, keeping its festivals, and observing its law.

But within this Church Jesus had gathered a group about Himself, to whom He imparted His faith and purpose, and into whom He breathed His Spirit.  He taught them to think of themselves as salt and light to season and illumine the community about them.  As leaders, He bade them become like Himself servants of all.  One was their Master, they all were brethren.  Soon they developed a corporate feeling that separated them from their fellow Jews, a corporate feeling Jesus had to rebuke because of its exclusiveness:  “Master, we saw one casting out demons in Thy name; and we forbade him because he followed not us.  But Jesus said, Forbid him not, for he that is not against us is for us.”  On the eve of His death He kept a Supper with them, which pictured to them His sustaining fellowship with them and their comradeship with one another in Him.  And He left them with the consciousness that they were to carry forward His work, were possessed of His inspiring Spirit and had His presence with them always.  Not by Jesus’ prescribed plans, but by His spiritual prompting the Church came to be.  “Like some tall palm the noiseless fabric sprang.”