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If we begin with the books of the New Testament the Church looms very large in their pages. Moreover, it is clear that there is only one Church: Christ promises to build his Church on the rock of St. Peter (Matt. 16:18), and St. Paul calls Christ head of the Church (Eph. 1:22 and 5:23, Col. 1:18) and compares the love of a husband for his wife to that of Christ for his Church (Eph. 5:29-32). There is no question of there being any other but this one Church, which is also identified as the Body of Jesus Christ.1 Yet St. Paul also speaks often of "churches," for example, at the conclusion of his epistle to the Romans, Paul writes, "All the churches of Christ greet [the church at Rome]" (Rom.16:17),2 and often he begins his epistles by greeting "the church of God at Corinth" (I Cor. 1:2) or "the churches of Galatia" (Gal. 1:2).3 But what is the relationship between the one Church, which is the body of Christ, and these local churches? Is the one Church a kind of federation of local churches? And is it possible for a local church to exist apart from the one Church?4

The word "Church" . . . means a convocation or an assembly. It designates the assemblies of the people, usually for a religious purpose. Ekklesia is used frequently in the Greek Old Testament for the assembly of the Chosen People before God. . . . By calling itself "Church," the first community of Christian believers recognized itself as heir to that assembly. In the Church, God is "calling together" his people from all the ends of the earth. (CCC 751)

In view of God's plan to restore mankind after the fall of Adam (Gen. 3:15), God at certain times has called together and constituted certain men as his people, such as the inhabitants of the Ark and the entire people who would be the descendants of Abraham, the people of Israel.5 But with the Incarnation, a new era was inaugurated. Now membership in the New Israel, the Church, was opened to all of mankind. Israel remains the People of God, but now Israel includes not only those bound together by ties of blood, but also the New Israel, the spiritual kingdom of the Church, the Body of Jesus Christ. St. Paul makes it clear in his epistle to the Romans, especially chapter 11, that the Gentiles were grafted onto the pre-existing "olive tree" (verse 17) of Israel, which is now constituted on an entirely different basis and whose sign of entry is no longer physical descent or circumcision, but baptism, the rebirth by water and the Holy Spirit. This is the Church of Jesus Christ, with which our Lord promised to be always (Matt. 28:19-20).