The true Church.
"The Church of God which he hath purchased with his own blood." Significance of this passage in view of Church history and present controversies.
I. THE SPIRITUALITY OF THE CHURCH. "Purchased with his own blood." Therefore neither an external organism nor a mere idea, but composed of living souls, whose salvation is secured by the merit of his blood. Not a mixed multitude, united by a formal rite, but, professedly at least, these who are partakers of Christ, The admixture of the evil with the good is the work of the "enemy" who sows the tares, not of the original formation of the Church.
II. INFLUENCE OF THE SPIRITUAL VIEW or CHURCH LIFE.
1. On those who "feed the Church," helping them to take heed to themselves and their flocks.
2. On the individual members of the Church, in the assurance of Divine grace, in the maintenance of vigilance.
3. On the world, both in "warning" away these who would defile the Church, and in inviting those who would enter in at the open gate into eternal life. The apostle's words regarded as prophetic. The greatest dangers of the Church have always arisen from lowering the conception of what the Church is. In our proneness to error, let us turn "to the Law and to the testimony."—R.