Who Is the Founder of the Church?

We are told that Abraham “looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.”* (Hebrews 11:10) And in the next chapter, the apostle Paul says to the converted Hebrews, “But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.”* (Hebrews 12:22-24)

That city—“whose builder and maker is God”—we have come unto in the gospel dispensation, and it is “the church of the firstborn.” Christ, who was “God… manifest in the flesh,”* (1 Timothy 3:16) is the founder, builder, and maker of the church. “For this man [Christ Jesus] was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who hath builded the house hath more honour than the house. For every house is builded by some man; but he that built all things is God.”* (Hebrews 3:3-4) “Feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.”* (Acts 20:28) “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church… holy and without blemish.”* (Ephesians 5:25-27) “Upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”* (Matthew 16:18)