A true local church, then, was the concrete embodiment of the spiritual body of Christ in a given place. It was the body of Christ because it was made up of the people of God, manifested the power of God, was the repository of the truth of God, was filled with the gifts of the Spirit of God, and was actually used by the Spirit in performing the works of God. Such characteristics made it "_the church of God_."
Membership in the general body of Christ was conditioned solely on the new birth, or salvation. Since the individual church was the local embodiment of the general church, none but the saved could properly become members thereof, and all who were truly saved (in the same locality) belonged to it by divine right. At this point, however, the human element in the constitution of the local church became manifest. We have pointed out the divine element in the true church--the element that particularly distinguished it as the church of God, but the bringing together of many individuals in one assembly involved also a social element and required the principle of _recognition_. There is, however, no evidence that such recognition was given by a formal, official act of the church in its corporate capacity. And since salvation is of the heart, it was possible for human recognition to temporarily miss its true purpose. Thus, in the church at Jerusalem we find recognized as a constituent part of the assembly two false members--Ananias and Sapphira. On the other hand, when the converted Saul "was come to Jerusalem, he essayed to join himself to the disciples: but they were all afraid of him, and believed not that he was a disciple" (Acts 9: 26). The church at Corinth, already referred to, had some false members at the time the Pauline epistles were written. The church at Samaria also tolerated for a time one whose "heart was not right in the sight of God" (Acts 8).
Since the local church was designed to exhibit concretely the spiritual body of Christ, none but saved persons could _properly_ hold membership therein; therefore the local church when in its normal condition was free from sin and sinners. The physical body, which Paul uses to illustrate the spiritual body, is normal only when every member possesses the life of the body and functions properly. So also was the body of Christ. It was not God's will that there should be (as recognized members) "sinners in the congregation of the righteous" (Psa. 1: 5). It was his will to purge Jerusalem "by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning" until "_he that is left_ in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called _holy_, even _every one_ that is written among the living in Jerusalem" (Isa. 4:3,4).