Wright: Nothing is hypothetical or potential in Paul’s thinking.

"The New Testament Epistles everywhere assume that those who are in the church are true believers. The Epistles address church members as “saints” or holy ones, and they point to clear objective realities that God has accomplished among them. In Ephesians, for example, they have been elected by the Father, redeemed by the Son, and sealed by the Spirit (Eph 1:3–14). Even in 1 Corinthians, surely written to one of the most dysfunctional churches of the apostolic era, Paul speaks of the church in objective categories that can only be applied to true believers.

Nothing is hypothetical or potential in Paul’s thinking. He addressed the letter to saints who are called by God and sanctified by Christ (1 Cor 1:2). He thanked God for the work he has already done in the people’s lives (1:4). He implored them to live set-apart, holy lives because of the work God has done for them in Christ (1:10). And he directed them to excommunicate from the church a person who refuses to repent of known, flagrant sin (5:5). The New Testament speaks of the church as a redeemed community, set apart by God’s sovereign will, to be his own peculiar people. They are not a mixed community."

Dever, M., Leeman, J., Davis, A. M., Hammett, J., Haykin, M. A. G., Merkle, B. L., … Wright, S. (2015). Baptist foundations: church government for an anti-institutional age. Nashville, TN: B&H Academic.

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