Do you remember the questions you once asked your little ones? What has long furry ears and a cotton-ball-like tail? What has very large ears and a trunk for a nose? What has the longest neck of all the animals?

These questions bring back wonderful memories of teaching my children to recognize animals by their attributes. But parents are not the only teachers to use attributes. Good theologians also make use of them. For example, there are the communicable and incommunicable attributes of God, or the four attributes of Scripture. If they are unfamiliar to you, they are well worth learning about. However, these are not the only times when a theologian employs attributive language.

In 381 A.D., the Council of Constantinople modified the Nicene Creed written 56 years earlier, creating what has come to be known as the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed. It is there that we find the church’s four defining attributes. The pertinent line runs like this: “In one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.” Of course these attributes are found in Scripture, but just as in good theology, good credal formulations summarize, organize, and systematize. This article will deal with the church’s catholicity, apostolicity, and holiness.

The Church is Catholic

The term catholic simply means universal. However, the meaning of the word in the church’s history has been less than exact. Early on, the attribute identified orthodoxy. However, during controversies in the third and fourth centuries, the meaning began to encompass geography. Thus, pockets of heretics could not possibly be the true church because they lacked a geographical testimony to their catholicity. This argument was resurrected by the Roman Catholics during the time of the Reformation. So, what does the attribute mean?

The Bible indicates both what it does and does not mean. For instance, catholicity is not affected by numbers or geography. Think of the church during the days of Noah. Prior to the flood, Noah and his faithful family were in the minority. They were overwhelmed by the unfaithful masses swarming the face of the earth. Or think of the 120 disciples in the upper room just prior to Pentecost. They were at that moment the catholic church. They did not have to geographically spread or numerically add in order to become catholic. They were catholic.

The Westminster Confession seems to identify the different biblical threads of this attribute when it says in chapter 25.1, “The catholic or universal church, which is invisible, consists of the whole number of the elect, that have been, are, or shall be gathered into one, under Christ the Head thereof; and is the spouse, the body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all.” Sections two and three make clear that the catholic church is also visible and has been given the ministry of gathering the elect from all parts of the world. As a corollary, it is the catholic church that possesses the universal cure for man’s malady. Thus, we talk about believers in all nations, at all times, and in all places. As a relevant point of application, the church must always stand against racism. When prior to World War II the German church excluded believing Jews from its membership, the church was denying her own identity as catholic.

The Church is Apostolic

Almost every Bible reader has encountered the term apostle. In secular Greek, it described those sent by a monarch and thus was representative of his royal authority. The Jews would have called this person a shaliach, or one who has the legal authority to act on behalf of the sender (1 Kings 14:6). That is clearly what Jesus intended by calling the twelve disciples apostles. Consider Jesus’ words to His disciples in Matthew 10:40: “Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me.” John 13:20 is similar when the Lord says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.” The disciples were sent with authority to speak on God’s behalf.

Paul’s experience was different from the Twelve, which is why he described himself as one abnormally born (1 Cor. 15:8), and yet he too had been appointed by God as an apostle. Thus, when Paul claimed to be an apostle to the Gentiles, he was simply saying that he was sent to the Gentiles with God’s authority. Even more striking is the fact that this small band of individuals bearing this authority had no successors (Acts 1:21–22). In other words, the apostolic office was unique and unrepeatable; their office died with them. But this raises an obvious question. How did apostolic, a word that designated the task of a few individuals, become an attribute of the church?

It is true that the apostles are dead and their office with them, but their authoritative teaching persists in the church. Consider how Paul chastised the Corinthians because they followed men (1 Cor. 1:10–17) instead of being devoted to the apostle’s teaching (Acts 2:42). Thus, the church is apostolic not because it fabricates an unbroken line of succession to the Apostle Peter like the Roman Catholic Church. Rather, it is apostolic because it confesses and continues in believing the apostles’ teaching.

The Church is Holy

Perhaps you have heard the quip, “If you find a perfect church, don’t join it! You will mess it up!” That one-liner cuts against the attribute of holiness. It says one of two things. First, you will never find a holy church, or second, if you find one, it’s not meant for you! How then should we understand Paul’s words to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 1:2) describing them as “those sanctified in Christ Jesus”? Grammar may not be high on your list of favorite things, but the word sanctified demands a few moments of our grammatical attention.

Sanctified is our word for holy, or, in this case, it is the verb meaning to make holy. The tense of a verb refers to when the action took place. In this case, the tense is perfect, which means that Christ made the Corinthians completely holy at some moment in the past and they continued to enjoy that status right up to the historical moment when Paul wrote to them. And we do not doubt that they remained holy because Christ made them so. Furthermore, a verb also has a voice that tells us the relation of the verb to its subject. The voice here is passive, and exegetes often call it a divine passive because God is the agent of the action. In other words, they were made holy by God in their union with Christ. The church is holy because the members are united to Christ.

Not everyone understands this simple truth. One prominent Roman Catholic theologian was so confounded by this that he offered several solutions. For instance, he argued that perhaps the church is different from her members, so the church could be described as holy even though her members are sinful. Brothers and sisters, the Scriptures would never recommend something so foolish. And yet, some are perplexed by how we can be called holy when, in fact, we sin.

Maybe we should ask if this poses a problem for Paul. Consider again 1 Corinthians 1:2. The Corinthians were not only “those sanctified in Christ Jesus” but, says the very next phrase, they are “called to be saints.” In other words, these Corinthian believers were called to act in a manner that reflected what God had done for and in them already. In Christ they had received forensic benefits (justification) and transformative benefits (sanctification). Thus, they were becoming what they already are in Christ. Simply put, the church is rightly called holy because the members of the church are saved by grace through faith in Christ alone.

Conclusion

Having worked through these attributes, perhaps we ought to say the obvious. We don’t have to work at attaining any one of these attributes. The rabbit does not have to acquire long ears and a cotton-like tail. The elephant need not shop around for a trunk. The giraffe does not fret about getting a neck of proper length. These attributes belong to them. The same is true of the church. The church is one, is catholic, is apostolic, and is holy. However, it is also true that the church has manifested these attributes to a greater or lesser degree in her existence. For example, it is easy for the church to take up social causes and hide, for a painful season, her commitment to apostolic doctrine. But the church is at her most glorious when she reflects her Redeemer and says to a watching world, “He lives! We are what we are because of Him. Praise the Lord!”