I know; it’s a silly question. Of course the church cannot save us. Only God can do that. We usually feel compelled to ask the opposite question: Can we save the church? That is usually what many, especially those of us who rely on the church for employment, are concerned about. Especially in our western postmodern culture we wonder if perhaps we are about to enter a post-church era.

Religion today appears in many forms with conflicting trends. On the one hand most church organizations appear to be thriving. The mega church phenomenon may not get the attention it once did. But large churches still exert considerable influence on the way we think about and do church. On the other hand, many, especially in the generations X and Y, tend to avoid or at least modify established forms of religion. The house church movement is on the rise and traditional denominational boundaries of doctrine and culture mean less and less. Ironically, some of the recent trends have “discovered” older forms of worship. The house church concept, for example, comes directly out of apostolic and early church times.

What is it about “church” that leaves us torn between enthusiasm and ambivalence, allegiance and scorn? Our criticism of “organized” religion is itself fraught with contradictions. As a pastor, my response to critics of organized religion is, “you think organized religion is bad? Try disorganized religion!” When our schedules fall apart, offerings are down, people don’t show up as promised, the sound operator is asleep at the switch, the babies (of every age) are all crying at once, the potluck generates more drama than fellowship, and my sermon feels DOA, I’m tempted to give up on organizing anything having to do with religion. Yet, by God’s grace we continue, often in spite of our efforts to do better.

I also remember wondering what it was about a pregnant teen-age girl that was so dangerous to the good name of the church and school. Was pregnancy contagious? If a pregnant girl was allowed to go to school and then to graduate, would other students actually think it was ok to follow her example? It seemed to me that having a pregnant senior walking the halls with other students might have a deterrent effect rather than the opposite. But of course the good church people who sat on the school board felt the need to impose consequences. After all, we can’t let people get away with things that go against what we stand for. Never mind the fact that being pregnant is quite the opposite of getting away with something. So in the name of Christian education they kept the girl out of school. Oh yes, there was a young man involved. But no one seemed concerned about him. I guess he just left quietly.

All of the attention was focused on the need of the church and school to uphold good moral values. In other words, people became more concerned about saving the church than in saving the two kids who were having a kid. So in an attempt to look good, the church, the school, the girl, her boyfriend, and her parents all ended up looking bad.

Do we need to save the church? Or should the church save us? All of this depends, of course, on our definition of “church.” As Jesus conceived of it, “the church” was to be his chosen agency for salvation. When we’re tempted to think we have to save the church, maybe we need to remember that Jesus actually intended to use the church to save us! So what sort of church was he talking about?

As Jesus was traveling through the region of Caesarea-Philippi he asked his disciples, “Who do men say that I am.” After hearing the current speculations that ranged from John the Baptist to Elijah to one of the prophets Jesus pressed the point saying, “Who do you say that I am?” Out of Peter’s mouth came the inspired statement, “You are the Christ, the son of the living God.” Jesus acknowledged the heaven sent truth of Peter’s statement. But instead of just letting the matter rest there he made one of the most radical statements ever recorded:

I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church [Gr. ecclesia, “congregation”], and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” (Mt 16:18, 19)

We need not bother with the notion of Peter being established as the first pope. After all, just a few verses later, Jesus again addresses Peter and says “Get behind me Satan!” (v 23). But there is an obvious play on words between the name Peter, meaning rock, and the “rock” on which Jesus would build his church. They are two words for rock with slightly different shades of meaning. But it is the similarity that is important here, not the differences. At that moment Peter became the rock, the representative of the disciples and of all human beings who would acknowledge Jesus as the messiah and who would thereby make up the congregation or church of Jesus. Such a collection of fallible human beings was not to be taken lightly. It had the power to repel the forces of Hades!

We should keep in mind that most of the ecclesiological meaning that has been invested in this text, including that of church hierarchies, is something added later. When Jesus spoke of “my church,” there was no such thing as a “church” in the way we think of it. The word was also used to refer to the “congregation” of Israel. So it had a definite corporate sense. But it did not yet have the meaning of an organization separate from Judaism.

Many Protestants have been afraid of this text. It seems to exalt Peter a little too much. But while we’ve been careful to point out what the text does not say, maybe we’ve missed what the text does say. The bold and radical truth here is that Jesus formed a congregation of fallible human beings by which he made God’s powerful grace available. And that gives me hope, not just for my church but for myself. I don’t have to save the church. I might still want to change it at times. But I don’t have to save it.

The “invisible church” remains a helpful concept in understanding the relationship between salvation and the church. Although it is tempting for those of us in official church positions to cite Matthew 16 and claim that Jesus was talking about “our church,” that remains a bit of a stretch and actually undermines what Jesus was saying. The group, church, or congregation to which Jesus referred is made up of everyone who like Peter remains loyal to “the Christ,” or Messiah, in the person of Jesus. This is a church without ethnic, geographical, or denominational boundaries. It is the “catholic” or universal church of all believers. We want our visible churches to match the membership of the invisible church as much as possible. And we work hard with varying degrees of success to do that. But as long as the “wheat and tares” grow together, and until the “Son of Man” comes in glory, there will remain a difference between the visible and the invisible church. Think of them as overlapping circles with areas representing membership in the visible or invisible church of Christ. Where they overlap will then be that unknowable but real area where the members of the visible church and the members of the invisible church are one and the same.

This does not make our visible church organizations irrelevant. But it does put them in proper perspective. To the extent that they reveal the grace of God and represent true believers, they remain important even indispensible. But all human organizations remain fallible. And Churches, because of their claim to divine appointment, often look worse especially when they fail to match all of our high expectations. We would like to think that churches are exempt from the foibles of humanity. But they are not. Like Peter, one moment they appear as the rock of our salvation. The next moment they might sound like the agent of Satan. But that is because the church is us. We are the reason the church is so valuable and fallible at the same time. It is also the reason that when the church tries to save itself, it flounders in the depths of its arrogance. But when it confesses Jesus as the Christ, and remains true to that name rather than worrying about its own, its light shines in the darkness.

Jesus’ church, then, although invisible, remains the most powerful force for grace on earth. It becomes the fulfillment of the words of the Lord’s Prayer, “Your will be done, on earth, as it is done in heaven.” The invisible church does not need us to save it. Rather, it remains the primary means by which Jesus reaches out to each one of us. So in a certain but real sense, the church saves us.