What is the Church of God, and how are we to live in It?

Are we to take what we see of the Church as an organisation of people in present-day society- one group of people among others-and say that this is it? There is a problem with that. We are fallen human beings. What we regard to be normal for humanity is actually abnormal or subnormal, subject to corruption and mortality. The Church Is the people that God is training to be 'partakers of the divine nature' (2 Peter 1:4)-partners in His purposes for both time and eternity. As such, it is markedly distinct from all human attempts to create community.

This is evident only to those who have come to know Christ in His incarnation and works of love-those who glory only in His Cross, which has brought us from intolerable and disgusting depravity to unspeakable glory.

This book is written to a Church that has lost much of what it can and ought to be, in the confidence that it is the treasured possession of God. It is the expression of one who longs to see human beings accorded their true God-given honour and dignity.