EDIFICATION (edri-ff-ka'shiln), (Gr. oltcoSo/475, oy-kod-onz-ay', building), means building up. A building is therefore called an edifice.
(1) Applied to spiritual things, it signifies the advancing. improving, adorning, and comforting the mind. A Christian may be said to be edified when he is encouraged and animated to fresh prog ress in the ways and works of the Lord. The means to promote our own edification are prayer, self-ex amination, reading the scriptures, hearing the gos pel, meditation, attendance on all appointed or dinances. To edify others, there should be love, spiritual conversation, forbearance, faithfulness, benevolent exertions, and uniformity of conduct.
(2) To perceive the full force and propriety of the terms as used by the apostles, it is quite neces sary to keep in mind the similitudes by which they generally describe a Christian church ; for, an at tentive reader of the New Testament may readily observe that it is mostly with a direct reference to that particular object that these expressive terms occur. Thus for instance, we sometimes find them
speaking of a church under the figure of a build ing (Eph. ii :21 ; 1 Cor. iii :9). At others, a house, (Heb. iii:6; I Tim. iii :15). And frequently a temple (1 Cor. :16, 17). A habitation for God (Eph. :22). Of this building, Jesus Christ is the foundation or chief corner-stone, laid by the doctrine of the apostles and prophets,—he is that living stone, elect, and precious, on which Zion is founded,—and believers in him united together in a church capacity, are consequently spoken of, as "lively stones, built up into a spiritual house" (I Pet. :5), thus constituting what Paul calls "the household of God" (Eph. ii :19), or "the household of faith" (Gal. vi :to).