This is not an easy question to answer, especially whenever we consider the church local or universal, visible or invisible. Thankfully, this answer applies to both.

God chooses and preserves for himself a community elected for eternal life. Those opening words contain terms that can be uncomfortable for some Christians, but this is simply language that Scripture itself uses. Jesus calls His people His elect, His chosen ones. Paul notably speaks of our election in Ephesians 1:3-14, which is a beautiful run-on sentence celebrating that God chose us before the foundation of the world.

But God not only chooses us; He also preserves us. Philippians 1:6 says plainly that “he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”

Paul did not write those words to be bitter pill for us to swallow; rather, these are words of comfort. God has chosen us, and God will also keep us.

And He does so for eternal life. As Jesus says in John 17:3, eternal life is knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent. Eternal life is an ever-deepening knowledge of God, for Whom and in Whom all things were made.

This chosen and preserved community is united by faith. We are united by faith in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. He has made us, redeemed us, and now empowers us to live to His glory.

This community of faith love, follow, learn from, and worship God together. Every Christian is called to do these things individually, of course. But the church exists because they are not meant to be done in isolation. Christianity is not a lone-wolf religion. The church is where these practices are embodied corporately as the collective people of God.

But this community also has an outward focus. God sends this community to proclaim the gospel and to prefigure Christ’s kingdom by the quality of their life together and their love for one another. To prefigure the kingdom means that the church gives the world a preview (partial and imperfect though it may be) of what God’s kingdom will one day be in its fullness. Christ’s kingdom is truly present, but it is not of this world. But we still pray, “Your kingdom come,” because its fullness is still to come. Thus, as citizens of that kingdom, the church is called to embody its values now, even as we wait for the day when Christ returns to make all things new.

The world around us is filled with conflict, division, and hatred, and sadly the church is not immune to such strife. There will also be sin and selfishness among God’s people. But even in our weakness, we are called to bear witness to the truth that it will not always be so. By our life together we testify that a future peace is coming. A day will arrive when people from every nation and ethnicity will be united under Christ: unique yet one.

May we, as the church, increasingly become that kind of community.

May the Spirit, our Empowerer, continually conform us to the image of Christ until the day He returns and brings His kingdom in all its fullness.