What is the church? Condemned...

What is the church?  And what can we liken it to as we continue with Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 22?

"And Isaac said to Abraham his father, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” And he said, “Here is the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” And Abraham said, “God will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went together."

Isaac is a dead man walking.  He just doesn't know it yet.  Maybe being in his teens and no dummy, he begins to suspect, yet he walks on.  Abraham has known for days.  Yet he walks on.  And here's the very simple point i've tried to make before and will try again today, the church is not inherently free from sin or its penalty: death.  

"They are corrupt.
They do abominable deeds.
There is none who does good.
Yahweh looks down from heaven upon the children of humankind
to see whether there is one who has insight,
one who cares about God.
All have gone astray;
they are altogether corrupt.
There is not one who does good;
there is not even one."  Psalm 14

"Because of this, just as sin entered into the world through one man, and death through sin, so also death spread to all people because all sinned." Romans 5

There is nothing lovely in these people who have come to be known as the church in and of themselves!  They are sinners.  They are thieves and whores and liars and murderers when they are called, every last one of them.  The church are dead men walking...

but they are also prophetic.  "And Abraham said, “God will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.”