Many Christians consider the church a physical building. They refer to the building as the church or as the sanctuary. Many think of a church as a building with a steep roof, stained-glass windows, and a bell tower.
The Bible, however, reveals that the church is a living composition of the living members of Christ (1 Pet. 2:5). It is an organic composition of all real believers. We are the church. It is not a lifeless building. The church is organic. The church is we, you and I, the persons regenerated by the Spirit with the divine life. It is all the dear saints. The church is an organism. It is living and alive. It is not lifeless, for the components of the church are living persons. We the believers are the components. The church is composed of all the saints, so it is something living.
The church is also a corporate person composed of the two elements of humanity and divinity. We the believers as the components of the church have two natures—a human nature and a divine nature. We received our human nature by our natural birth. Then in our second birth, a spiritual birth, we received another nature, the divine nature. At our regeneration we received the divine life (1 John 5:11). If we have life, surely with that life goes the nature. We are partakers of the divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4): therefore, we have two natures.
There is a trend today among seminary students to believe that Christians have only one nature, which will be gradually improved. This is not only a wrong teaching; it is heretical. Such a teaching annuls the fact of regeneration.
The church, however, is a living, corporate composition of people with two natures—human and divine. With Christ there was divinity first, then humanity. With us there is humanity first, then divinity. Christ as the tabernacle was a person with divinity plus humanity, and we, as the enlargement of Christ, God's dwelling place, the very temple, are a composition of first humanity and then divinity. Christ has divinity plus humanity. We have humanity plus divinity. In nature He and we are the same. The only difference is that He has the Godhead, and we do not; yet we do have the divine life and nature as He does. We do not have His headship, His deity.