In God's plan, He desires to have a Body for His Son in the universe. Yet in a practical way, God desires those who are part of this Body to become churches in the different localities. God desires that each one of these churches be a miniature and a representation, in the different localities, of the mystical Body of the Son of God. This kind of understanding is very much lacking among Christians today. Even some who are very much for the pursuit of spirituality neglect this fact.
In the first point, we talked about the universal church. In the second point, we are talking about the local church. An elder must have this twofold knowledge concerning God's plan for the church. He must know the universal Church, and he must also know the local church. In other words, he must know the Church in its universal aspect, and he must know the church in its local aspect. Never consider the universal Church to be one kind of church, and the local church to be another kind of church. There is only one Church. Collectively speaking, it is the universal church, and locally speaking, it is the local churches. Strictly speaking, the local churches are the universal Church. The universal Church is simply the sum total of the local churches, and the local churches are simply the local manifestations of the universal Church. Without the local churches, there cannot be the universal Church. When the elders are managing the local churches, they are managing the universal Church.
God's plan is to have a Church in the universe as the Body of His Son for His expression. However, to carry out this plan, He has to set up local churches in the different localities. If He does not set up churches in the different localities, God's universal plan for the church will be only an empty ideal with no way to be carried out. In order to carry out this plan, God has to set up churches in the different localities.
If you grasp hold of these two points, you will be clear when you read the New Testament again. There is a great vision in the New Testament that tells how the Church as the Body of Christ is the expression of the Son of God. This concerns God's plan in the universe. On the other hand, the New Testament shows us that the Church appears in the localities. It is in the different localities that God's plan is realized. Every elder should have a clear knowledge concerning all these matters. This is the elders' knowledge concerning the church. Of course, there are a number of matters connected with this subject, such as the question of denominations, the question of the ground, and the nature of the church. We will not go into these other things. Here we only emphasize the Church as the Body of Christ in God's plan for the expression of Christ and the church practiced on earth in the different localities.