Viewing genuine, Spirit-indwelt, local churches as embassies for the Kingdom of Heaven scattered throughout the world is an analogy that works well on many levels. Here’s a couple helpful posts that work out some of the connections: Churches: The Embassies and Geography of Heaven and Planting an Embassy of the Empire. And while there is nothing wrong with Christian teachers concocting their own creative illustrations (Mt 13:52), I would argue that the church-as-embassy metaphor is actually more than a man-made picture. Even though the language isn’t explicitly in the Bible, Scripture leads us toward it.

This embassy imagery first occurred to me while studying the book of Revelation. Of the many mysteries in John’s Apocalypse, one of the earliest conundrums we encounter is why the letters to the seven churches (chp. 2-3) are addressed to the “angel of the church” in each of their respective cities?

Long story short, at least part of the reason probably pertains to the fact that there are a number of clues in the Old Testament that every nation in the world has a unique spiritual being who represents it in the heavenly realms—something like a “guardian angel” or spiritual “prince” for each “principality.” By speaking to the “angel of the church in Ephesus” the message comes through that God sees the Ephesian Christians as belonging to a distinctly different political realm than the human-level Ephesian municipality and the larger Roman Empire which physically surround them. Like an embassy on foreign soil with its consular staff, they will seek to show respect for the local laws and customs where possible, but their allegiance, their fidelity, their purpose and commission, etc., are all rooted firmly in their devotion to the Homeland.

Jesus’ people are a “holy nation” (1 Peter 2:9) so he jolly well treats them as such. But unlike most nations, this peculiar nation is geographically scattered among the other nations (which, indeed, is exactly how he wants it—Mt 24:14, 28:18-20, Mark 13:10, Gal 3:8, 1 Tim 3:16, Rev 5:9, 7:9, etc.). Hence each legitimately official outpost of the unique heavenly nation/kingdom gets its own angel.