Craig Van Gelder on Corporate Salvation

Continuing with quotes from Craig Van Gelder’s The Essence of the Church: A Community Created by the Spirit:

Defining salvation in individual terms is biblical, but it is not all that the Bible teaches. The Spirit of God is creating a new community as the body of Christ. While salvation is always individual in its effect, how it is to be offered and experienced is very corporate. To be converted to Christ is to be converted to his body, the church. The church is not a collection of self-selecting individuals who assemble to have their needs met. The church, as the creation of the Spirit, corporately offers salvation to individuals, but this salvation is accepted and experienced within a community. (131)