The Church’s One Foundation – What Does This Mean?

The Church’s one foundation
Is Jesus Christ, her Lord;
She is His new creation
By water and the Word.
From heaven He came and sought her
To be His holy bride;
With His own blood He bought her,
And for her life He died.

How does Christ make disciples in the Church? He makes them by water and the word. Baptism is this work of God, and not our own work. Notice that the hymnwriter connects baptism to the Incarnation, that Jesus came from heaven to be married to His Bride, the Church. Jesus shows us that the life of husbands ought to be sacrificial for their wives, and that wives are more precious and valuable than everything else.

Elect from every nation,
Yet one over all the earth;
Her charter of salvation:
One Lord, one faith, one birth.
One holy name she blesses,
Partakes one holy food,
And to one hope she presses
With every grace endued.

This stanza speaks of the church from all over the world united by One Lord, One Faith, and One Birth. Consider how beautiful this hymnwriter includes baptism, then prayer and worship, and then the Lord’s Supper, and then the hope of the life everlasting that we confess in the Creed. This is the life of the Church because the Church lives because of Christ.

Though with a scornful wonder
The world sees her oppressed,
By schisms rent asunder,
By heresies distressed,
Yet saints their watch are keeping;
Their cry goes up, “How long?”
And soon the night of weeping
Shall be the morn of song.

What are the concerns of the Church today? There is persecution, there is false doctrine, there is low attendance, and there are so many different denominations. But we are those saints who are keeping watch, who pray like the Psalms, “How long?” How long until the Lord returns for us? is the yearning of faith among those who sing.

Through toil and tribulation
And tumult of her war
She waits the consummation
Of peace forevermore
Till with the vision glorious
Her longing eyes are blest,
And the great Church victorious
Shall be the Church at rest.

We might expect to sing about justification at the end, but here the hymnwriter has put our vision out in front of us, awaiting the end of the world and the final victory of our Lord over sin, death, and hell. Rather than looking back, we look forward to seeing Jesus once again.

Yet she on earth has union
With God, the Three in One,
And mystic sweet communion
With those whose rest is won.
O blessed heavenly chorus!
Lord, save us by Your grace
That we, like saints before us,
May see You face to face.

This final stanza connects us back to communion, back to the saints, and ultimately into fellowship and union with the Holy Trinity forever and ever. Amen.

Rev. James Peterson
First Lutheran Church
Phillipsburg, Kansas