What does Ecclesia look like? (3)

Macro ECCLESIA – the Universal Body of Christ.

As a believer and disciple of Jesus in my twenties and early thirties, I learnt an enormous amount by the Spirit through a man of God called David Watson.

David wrote a number of the volumes in the “I Believe…” series published by Hodder and Stoughton in the 70s and 80s.  I still have six of his books in my collection – I loved every one of them and learnt so much.  I consider his Discipleship a classic and always contemporary and, to this day, a wonderful help to those setting out on their adventure with Jesus – and to those who mentor and lead them.

David wrote I Believe in Evangelism and I Believe in the Church for Hodder and Stoughton.

My purpose in this post is to bore down into the first part of my first post in this series, “What does ecclesia look like (1)”.  What is the ‘macro’ or universal picture of ecclesia?

On this subject, David Watson, in his 1978 publication I Believe in the Church has much to teach us today.  Almost 35 years after this book was written, Christians who have been on the road all that time still do not know what the Holy Spirit was teaching the people of God through David Watson in this book.

He begins chapter three with these words:

“Christ came to establish a new society on earth.  It was not enough for him to call individual sinners to God.  He promised that he would build his church.  It would be the most powerful force on earth providing it could be created, inspired and sustained with his life and love.  Nothing could stop – or ever has stopped – the revolution of love which he began two thousand years ago.”

“It is worth looking first, then, at the longing in the heart of Jesus when he prayed for his disciples shortly before his suffering and death.  In John 17 we have a glorious picture of the purpose of God’s church on earth, as Jesus prayed that it should be marked by four main things: the glory of God, the word of God, the joy of God, and united in the love of God.” (p.39)

And I love how Watson expresses this first part of the burden of Jesus for his ecclesia – the glory of God:

“This word ‘glory’ (doxa) means basically the visible manifestation of the splendour and power and radiance of God.  It is God revealing himself so that, as far as possible, we can see the beauty and majesty of his living presence with us.  For example, after Solomon’s prayer of dedication, the temple was filled with the glory of God; God was manifestly and powerfully in their midst.

“In New Testament days, of course, God revealed himself supremely in the person of his son, when ‘the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth’, wrote John; ‘we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father’,

“However, today the glory of God is clearly meant to be seen in the church.  Paul wrote about the ‘glorious liberty of the children of God’, or, literally translated, ‘the liberty of glory of the children of God’, referring to the freedom that God’s children experience when his glory is revealed in our midst.” (p.40)

Watson then goes on to expand on each of these four things he sees as both the God-assigned purpose of the ecclesia and the markers or ‘signs’ of ecclesia within the world of humankind – key things that distinguish the wheat from the weeds in Jesus parable of Matthew 13.

On ‘the word of God’, he says: “In John 17 Jesus prayed much about the word of God. ‘I have given them thy word…  They have kept thy word…  Sanctify them in the truth: thy word is truth…’  The word for ‘keep’ (tereo) means to keep safe, to watch over, to hold fast, to guard.  God’s word is a sacred deposit that has been entrusted to the church for safe keeping and … we are not to tamper with God’s word, not to alter it, add to it, or subtract from it in any measure.  We must be concerned with the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” (p.43)

In John 17:8, Jesus also said, “I have given the words which you gave me, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.”

Interestingly, nowhere in John 17 does Jesus make reference to scripture as having been given to his disciples as a trust.  “I have given them your word” is the Greek logos, meaning the word of the gospel – God’s message of truth to the world in the person and work of Jesus.  Apostle Paul seems to take this view too when he says to the Thessalonians that “we speak as men approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel.” (1 Thess 2:4)  Paul isn’t talking about being entrusted with scripture.

And in John 17:8 (“I have given them the words”), the Greek here is rhema, meaning the specific things that were said.  In other words, Jesus not only does what He sees the Father doing, He speaks the things (the specific things; the rhemas) He hears the Father saying.  This is the same word Mary used when she hid in her heart the specific things (rhemas) the angel said to her about her conception and the birth of Jesus.

Paul instructed Timothy who was a leader at Ephesus, to “Guard the truth that has been entrusted to you by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us” (2 Timothy 1:13) and to “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, handling accurately the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15).

I love what Watson then goes on to say:  “However, there is also the need for the church to listen very carefully to God, in whatever way he may speak…  The church that is alive and relevant for today’s generation must always be a prophetic church.  We must therefore listen very carefully in order to discern what God is saying to us today.” (p.43)

What does the scripture say?  “He who has ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the ecclesias.” – the repeated message to the seven churches written to in Revelation 2 and 3.

On ‘the joy of God’, Watson says: “Christ longed that his joy might be ‘fulfilled’ in his disciples.  Often he referred to this: ‘These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full.’  The New Testament church was filled with this remarkable quality of Joy, even in the midst of the fiercest trials, and this in itself was a powerful witness of the life of God’s Spirit within that church…  In a world marked by hopelessness, gloom and despair, the radiant joy of Christ in the lives of Spirit-filled Christians is of special significance” (p.45-46)

And on ‘united in the love of God’, Watson says this: “In John 17, Jesus prayed four times that his disciples might be perfectly united in love: ‘that they may be one, even as we are one…that they may all be one, even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee…that they may be one, even as we are one…that they may become perfectly one, and that the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them.’  The reason for his tremendous burden is also clear: it is that the world might believe and know the truth about God and about his Son Jesus Christ.” (p.47)

He goes on to say, “We have access into God’s presence; and we are all one in Christ Jesus.  There are no more walls of hostility – except those of our own making.  How, then, can we preach a message of love, forgiveness and reconciliation – between man and God and between man and man – unless the reality of that can be seen by our unity and love as Christians?  This should be the distinguishing mark of all true disciples of Christ: that we love one another as he loved us” (p.47)

Now, by way of contrast, I want to flick back in time to the Old Testament prophet Ezekiel.  Chapters 8 through 11 of Ezekiel recount, in the form of a series of visions given to Ezekiel, the departure of the glory of the Lord, from the ark, then from the temple, then from Jerusalem itself.  Ezekiel was shown by God why this was happening – the evil and the abominations and the violence and corruption that the people of Judah were committing inside the walls, even while they say, “The Lord does not see us, the Lord has forsaken the land”.

If you read the first few chapters of Jeremiah, you will find a similar message – and in it the people of Israel say, in spite of all the evidence against them, “I am innocent; surely his anger has turned from me”.  But God replies, “Behold I will bring you to judgement for saying, ‘I have not sinned’.” (Jer 2:34-35)

Fast forward many years now to William Tyndale in the sixteenth century AD – a little over 500 years ago.  Tyndale lost his life and is known to us as a martyr because he defied all prevailing authority and held tenaciously to his conviction that the thing we call “the church” and the ecclesia of God are NOT one and the same.  What we call “The Reformation” cut deeply to the heart of the matter of the ecclesia of God.  “The church” looked very much like Israel and Judah did thousands of years earlier.  The recorded history of the period is testament to the evil and the abominations and the violence and corruption in “the church”.

I contend – speaking prophetically – not just that William Tyndale was right, nor just that “the church” is not equal to ecclesia.  Most particularly, I contend that, as the glory of the Lord had to depart from the ark, then the temple, then Jerusalem itself because of the evil in it, God’s New Covenant glory never was placed upon “the church” because it is an interloper.  God’s glory always was, is now and always will be on (actually in) the ecclesia – His called-out company.  And His ecclesia contains not one single institution, organisation, ‘special clergyman’ or program.

“The church” is not the ecclesia now sick and diseased.  “The church” never was the ecclesia, it just pretended to be.  It stole the name ecclesia so it could lay claim to the people in it, to the things the bible says about it, and to the benefits offered by the State.  The ecclesia has existed since it was brought into being on the day of Pentecost, and it exists today, and it is marked by the things David Watson describes: the glory of God, the word of God, the joy of God and unity in the love of God.  The ecclesia and “the Church” co-exist as the wheat and the tares co-exist in the parable of Jesus.  One brings a harvest for God, the other is rooted up and burned.

So what does ecclesia look like?  It looks like what Paul describes in a section of 2 Corinthians:

“But to this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over [the sons of Israel’s] heart; but whenever a man turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.  Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom.  But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit. (3:15-18)

“Therefore, since we have this ministry as we received mercy, we do not lose heart, but we have renounced the things hidden because of shame, not walking in craftiness or adulterating the word of God, but by the manifestation of truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.  And even if the gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God.

“For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus’ sake.  For God, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness’, is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing greatness of the power may be of God and not from ourselves.” (4:1-7)

Take a look at Matthew 13:24-30 and 36-43.  It is a pointless exercise to try to turn tares (a weed) into wheat.  And it is not our responsibility to pull out the tares while they are growing amongst the wheat.  However, if we do not recognise the two – distinguish between the two – how immature and ineffectual are we in the kingdom of God and in the matters of the ecclesia that have been entrusted to us?

As the enemy is responsible for the weeds furtively sown in amongst the wheat, the enemy is responsible for “the church” furtively sown in amongst the ecclesia.

In my frame of reference, that is the story of “church history”.  And we cannot claim we were not warned.  Both Jesus and Paul talked about it.  But the enemy has been so successful we now have great difficulty distinguishing between the work of God and his work.  That’s why ecclesia is “first apostles, second prophets, third teachers” and the rest follow them.  We need it to be this way but we always fight and resist it (to our detriment) because we are uncomfortable without a guru and a go-between.

Cheers,
Kevin.

What does Ecclesia look like? (2)

Discerning the Body of Christ Correctly

[See 1 Corinthians 11:29-30]

I am of the view that we have to take a ‘radical’ view in relation to this matter, but let me say clearly at the start that I use the term ‘radical’ with its original meaning: ‘of the root’.  Rad is the Latin for ‘root’.  So here, radical means going to the root of the matter.

The ‘root’ of this matter is not found in so-called church history but in the words and actions of Jesus and Paul.  Jesus is the Founder and Head of ecclesia and God gave Paul the revelation of His new administration – the administration in which ecclesia is at the heart of the Spirit’s work because it is the primary passion of God – the bride for His Son.

So then, I take the view that ‘discerning the body correctly’ is roughly the same as taking the same view as Jesus and Paul – as far as it is possible to do so – and then seeking the wisdom of God and the power of the Spirit (i.e. acquiring the ‘ears to hear’) so we can ‘hear what the Spirit says to the ecclesias’.

The concept of “the body of Christ” is profoundly important to us.  Very often we use this term when we want to refer to the whole ecclesia as distinct from a particular local group or cluster of groups.  Unfortunately, we also use the expression (incorrectly in my view) to refer to the murky mass of mediocrity that is ‘christendom’ today.

The concept of “discerning the body” is likewise very important.  We are taught by Paul that failing to discern the body correctly leads to weakness, sickness and death amongst us.  But just what did Paul mean by the expression “discern”?  The idea is the same as that in the gospels where Jesus suggests His disciples can correctly interpret signs in the sky relating to the weather.  Do we have eyes that see and ears that hear concerning the body of Christ?

Romans chapters 9 through 11 are all about the revelation that Paul received concerning the place of the Jews in the plan of God in His new administration since the inauguration of the new covenant in the Lord Jesus Christ.  In Romans 11:7-8 Paul writes, “That which Israel is seeking for, it has not obtained, but those who were chosen obtained it, and the rest were hardened; just as it is written, ‘God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes to see not and ears to hear not, down to this very day.’” (A quote from Isaiah 29:10)

And what was Israel seeking for?  According to Romans 10, righteousness.  “For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge.  For not knowing about God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God.  For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” (Romans 10:2-4)

And the New Testament writer to the Jews [Hebrews] says that if one does not understand the teaching about righteousness, one is still an infant (Hebrews 5:11-14).  The writer says to them that some things have become…

“…hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.  For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.  For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is a babe.  But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.”

My informal research shows me that most in “the church” do not understand the teaching about righteousness, much less teach it – just like the Jews the New Testament writers were addressing, trying to teach things they do not themselves understand or know in experience.

In addition, we have the elements of bread and wine as a memorial observed regularly in Christian gatherings.  We are warned that by not discerning or “discriminating correctly” what they represent, we are opening ourselves to God’s judgement.

When I find weakness or sickness or death among the people of God today, this is the first place I look for an explanation.  I believe there is good reason to do so at present for I have discovered a very poor record of “discernment” in this matter around the ‘church’ of my nation Australia.

Commonly, the term “the Body of Christ” is seen as the sum of all our christian organisations (of whatever denomination or non-denominational grouping).  This is rather like seeing the sum of the twelve tribes of Israel as “true Israel”.  Only in the natural do the 12 tribes make up Israel.  In the spiritual sense, true Israel is the “remnant” the scriptures speak about (Romans 9:27; 11:5) made up of Jews and people of all ethnic groups.

“For they are not all Israel who are [descended] from Israel.  Neither are they all children because they are Abraham’s descendants.  That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants.”  (Romans 9:7-8)

And again, “Understand, then, that it is those who are of faith who are the children of Abraham.”  (Galatians 3:7)

In the same way, not all “the church” is “the Body of Christ” and when we take the bread in communion, we are to at least understand this or we risk the judgement of God.

The Body of Christ (The ecclesia) is not made up of any organisations.  Organisations are a human imposition onto the Body of Christ and in a real sense run “beside” it.  All our organisations - including all our denominations, mission groups and whatever else we have created - are, in the fullest sense of the word, para-church.

If it is true that it is “those who are led by the Spirit of God” who are in fact “the sons of God” (Rom 8:14), then the Body of Christ is all such people, from every period of history, from every part of the globe, from every race that has ever existed.  Just as to take the wine is our participation in the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ for our sins, taking the bread is our participation in this “Body of Christ” - our sharing in the sustenance which that Body receives from the Holy Spirit and provides to those at the Lord’s table.

If we do not examine ourselves and end up lying to ourselves about how we really see this, is it any wonder that the anointing of God has moved to the perimeter of our work – or left altogether?  Is it any wonder that “many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have died”?

God is not interested in our organisations that we start because ‘it seemed like a good idea at the time’; and Jesus wants His Body back.  Unfortunately, much of what poses as the body of Christ would be better described as a self-interested body-snatcher.

Organisations do not go into eternity, people do.  Organisations have probably been the source of some blessing in the lives of believers and unbelievers alike; they have also been the cause of a very real fracturing of people’s vision of “the Body of Christ”.

Every human organisation we have ever made has come with the built-in risk that it is likely to succumb to the temptations of Jezebel and Babylon; of a spirit of religious control over the bodies, souls and spirits of the people of God.

If, then, our discerning of the Body of Christ – our seeing and hearing – is impaired by participation in an organisation, to that extent we are at grave risk of becoming weak, sick or very dead!

For some time now, the Spirit – through today’s prophets – has been saying: “Come out of [Babylon] my people, so that you will not share in any of her sins or receive any of her plagues.”

He is saying it because He is shaking and sifting His people in preparation for a move of His Spirit like we have never seen before.  If we cannot “discern the Body of Christ correctly”, how shall we be prepared for this move – or to rule with Christ, reign with Christ, judge angels and judge men as Apostle Paul talks about?

What does ecclesia look like?  We can see her when we stop pretending we are gurus and willingly submit to the prophets and teachers God has given to His ecclesia for precisely this purpose of understanding the teaching about righteousness and then going on past the ‘elementary things’ to maturity.  [Remember Ephesians 2:19-22 and 4:1-16]

Ecclesia has eyes that see the unseen; ears that hear the whispers of the Father; a spirit that leans into the wind of His Spirit.  When our eyes behold a movement that is the living embodiment of the words of Jesus and Paul we have examined here, we are looking at Ecclesia.  No institutions; no sacred buildings; no special clergy; no secret rites.  Jesus Christ as Head; the Spirit as the primary teacher and interpreter; and “first apostles, second prophets and third teachers…” (1 Corinthians 12:28) building maturity, unity and love in the body.

Paul became the vessel of God to “[make] known to us the mystery of His will, according to His intention which he purposed in Him, with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth.”  When our eyes behold such an administration, we know we are looking at Ecclesia.

Cheers,
Kevin.

What does Ecclesia look like? (1)

3 Modes of Ecclesia

In the New Testament, I find 3 modes of ecclesia.

On the largest scale, the ecclesia is God’s family; God’s sheep herd; His Body on earth; the Bride of His Son Jesus the Christ.  The Church is His plan to bring His domain (the Kingdom of God) to earth, among humankind, so that He can bring humanity into His eternal domain to inherit Him and His kingdom.  The big picture – the MACRO.
 

On the smallest scale - the smallest expression of that - we find “ecclesia that meets in the home of …”  The smallest mode – the MICRO.
 

In between, we find another expression of that: for example, “ecclesia in Ephesus” – ecclesia in a town or village.  The in-between mode – the MEZZO.
 

[These illustrations are from Scripture Union UK's "Question Mark" booklet The Church by Michael Eastman, Michael Shoesmith and L F Lupton; undated.]

While each mode has its peculiarities and its differences from the other modes, some things remain constant.  In one sense, whatever mode you look at, you should see the same thing.

Somewhere within the realms of mathematics, quantum physics and chaos theory, you will find Mandelbrot.  Mandelbrot discovered a small formula that, when numbers and colours are assigned, produces amazing fractals.  It’s called the Mandelbrot Set.  Whenever you see the Mandlebrot set presented visually, it will have this basic shape.  As Wikipedia as of this date says, "The Mandelbrot set is a mathematical set of points whose boundary is a distinctive and easily recognizable two-dimensional fractal shape."

There seems to be no limit to the number of different fractal ‘pictures’ we can create, but the uniqueness of the Mandelbrot Set is that no matter how far you ‘zoom’ in or out on the picture, the pattern is always the same – from infinity to infinity if there is such a thing.

When I learned about Mandelbrot, it reminded me of an eternal God who inhabits eternity; who is described as “The I AM”.  Jesus, His Son is referred to as “the Alpha and the Omega” – the beginning and the end.  Or better: the source and the destiny.  Whether you look at God or at Jesus, one thing is the same: they never change.  No matter how much you “zoom” in or out, they are the same.  They are both extremely simple and extremely complex at the same time.  If we can borrow another term from science, God’s DNA shows up wherever you see Him and however large or small is your view of Him.

Ecclesia is like that too.  God has made it both simple and complex at the same time.  One view of ecclesia might give you the macro picture, the next the micro.  But what you’re looking at is the same.  As few as 2 or 3 people, we are told, represent the ecclesia; at the same time, the billions of people throughout time and space who have God as their King also represent ecclesia.  At the heart of it, of course, is that it is people; God’s redeemed people; all those who are totally trusting in Jesus Christ for their right-standing before God (their ‘righteousness’).

Perhaps for us the most pertinent of all is the 'mezzo' picture - the ecclesia in the city.  When our focus is on building ecclesia (God's house) in our lives and in our neighbourhoods and suburbs instead of on building our own domains and kingdoms, God's face and His glory begin to be seen at the level of the city or town ecclesia.  This is the unity that God creates by His Spirit, not the 'unity' man creates by his own strength and will; and this is the unity we are all encouraged to reach and maintain by our participation with the Holy Spirit as he does his work as described in Ephesians 4 - every member functioning.

Jesus is the inaugurator of ecclesia and He alone is her head and her life is sustained by the will of the Father (for she is the bride for His Son) through the power of the Holy Spirit.  Whatever else people see when they look at ecclesia (if they have the spiritual eyesight to see 'the unseen' things of the spirit) they will see her life rooted in eternity, they will see Jesus Christ as her head and Lord and they will see the sustaining and empowering work of the Spirit in all those who are part of the body and in the body as a whole living organism.  They will be able to understand Apostle Paul's stress on 'discerning the body correctly', by the Spirit.

Unfortunately, our natural human, earthly, mortal eyes are 'adjusted' to see only the natural.  So we see earthly, man-made, man-run organisations and think we are looking at ecclesia.  I pray the Father gives us new eyes to see 'the unseen'.  I pray the Father gives us a heart to not just sing, "Turn your eyes upon Jesus" but to actually do it - as the dominant work of seeing in our lives.

One of the things I had to do in the early days of my prophetic commission was begin to learn to walk with my head in eternity, and discipline my hands and feet to respond, on earth, to what I was seeing.  I am still learning and still have much to learn.  Jesus, I think, mastered it.  His words were, "I do what I see the Father doing".  And this again, I believe, is one of the distinguishing marks of ecclesia: people see and live differently - they answer to a different drum beat.

Blessings,

Kevin.

Confusing Church (Part 5 - Final)

One final example of ‘confusing church’.

In my estimation, the writing of Frank Viola has to be some of the best available to the body of Christ today.  The work we do here in Australia begins with an understanding of the truth that Viola so beautifully opens to us in From Eternity to Here.  We then follow that with The Untold Story of the New Testament Church then Pagan Christianity then Reimagining Church and then Organic Church.  I find that there is no better material for its understanding and articulation of an accurate and soundly biblical paradigm for the new covenant people of God today.

There are other writers who contribute very well to parts of the story that Viola tells.  I use David Orton’s Snakes in the Temple, Paul Vieira’s Jesus Has Left the Building, Neil Cole’s Organic Church, Gene Edwards’ Howto Meet, Greg Boyd’s The Myth of a Christian Religion, and my own material written over a period of around twenty years.

And then I often add to that the work of some of the twentieth century writers, some of whom are now passed on to their reward: A W Tozer; Leonard Ravenhill; T Austin-Sparks; George Warnock; Watchman Nee and the likes.  The Refiner’s Fire Journals provide a good selection of the works of such writers.  The subtitle of the Journals is “A Journal for those who seek a fuller revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ”.

But let me come back to Frank Viola.  Chapter 16 of From Eternity to Here is about What Viola calls “the habitat of the christian”.  His point is that that the christian has a native habitat: it is the ecclesia.  He makes a good point that ecclesiai is not a building, not a denomination, not a ‘church service’; it is not native to this planet since its origins are from “another realm”.

In addition Viola sees in the Old Testament record “a portrait of three habitats in which God’s people are never to live”.  He says, “the first counterfeit habitat is Egypt” – representing the world system: “Consumerism, materialism, greed, commercialism, and turning pleasure into a god…”

His second counterfeit habitat is Babylon – representing “the human attempt to reach God by human strength, human wisdom, and human ingenuity” and “trying to make a name for oneself in the process.”

His third counterfeit habitat is “wilderness” – representing “a Divine requirement…a detour; it’s not home” and “The wilderness is temporary, unless you decide to build a home there.”

He has three chapters that correspond to these three counterfeit habitats: Fleeing the City of bondage – Egypt (16); Leaving the City of Religion – Babylon (17); Exiting the Desert of Waste – wilderness (18).

It is not at all difficult to see in all of this a potent truth: what we call the ‘church’ is not the ecclesia of God.

I believe Viola actually makes this point well a few pages earlier in chapter 15 when he says:

“What the Father was to Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ is to His church (John 6:57; 20:21, etc.). The church is the habitation of God in the Spirit.  This lifts the church out of “the mutual admiration society” up to the level of being the very body of Christ.  The church never has been nor will it ever be a human institution.”

“The church is the only place where God can deposit His committed presence.  As men and women eat of the Tree of Life (Christ) and drink of the River of Life (Christ), and as they join themselves together with other living stones, something remarkable happens.  Gold, pearl, and precious stone begin to be deposited within them.  And God’s house gets established on the earth.” (p. 163)

 

He says in chapter 16, “What men call “church” today is very often not our native habitat.” ( p. 175)

Here is the confusion: if we take what arguably is some of the best writing and teaching available today, it says that the ‘church’ is both “the habitation of God in the Spirit…the very body of Christ” and, at the same time, an “artificial habitat” pictured as Egypt, Babylon and wilderness – all places to flee or escape; the ‘church’ is both “an unnatural habitat…that doesn’t match the species” and, at the same time, our “native habitat”.

I believe that the confusion exists because we don’t quite have the courage to stand as William Tyndale did centuries ago (and got murdered for it) and say clearly that there is no connection between what we call “the church” and God’s ecclesia.  There is the ‘church’ that man is building (more correctly called kuriakos) and there is the ‘church’ that God is building (more correctly called ecclesia).  These two things are two entirely different species.

And further, we would do well to stop using the word ‘church’ totally and for ever.  It is nothing but confusion.  It means the structures, institutions and programs of man; and it means the physical buildings put together by human hands.  Yet, at the same time, we insist on using the same word to describe and talk about the bride of Christ, the ecclesia of God, and the fellowship of the saints – which we then go on to describe, as Viola does, “the Christian faith today is in a great mess”.

What are we talking about?  The christian faith, the church, the ecclesia, the organisation, the institution, the buildings, the programs, the clergy – all get bundled into one murky mass of mediocrity.

And given what Viola says in From Eternity to Here, I find it particularly confusing when he has elsewhere on his website an article titled “Why I love the Church”.  Is this a sop to the institutions, organisations and “pastors” that are all part of Egypt, Bablyon and wilderness?

If I read Viola right, he doesn’t love the thing we call “church” but the ecclesia of God.  After all, Jesus said that if we love the world system, we do not love God – which means we are not part of ecclesia.

Let me reinforce yet again: I think Viola’s work is among the best available to the body of Christ today and I recommend it highly.  We just need to be courageously clear that what we generally call “church” is not the ecclesia of God, neither is it a part of the ecclesia of God.  It is the tares growing among the wheat and we need to be wise caretakers and know how to distinguish the two.  One is suitable for food and reproduction; the other is a weed fit only to be pulled up and burned by God.  Why then are we spending so much of our time and resources on the weeds and neglecting the wheat?

Using a house analogy instead of plants, the Old Testament prophets spoke clearly for God on this matter.  Haggai for instance, says:

“Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins?  Now therefore thus says the Lord of hosts: consider how you have fared.  You have sown much, and harvested little; you eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but never have your fill; you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and he who earns wages earns wages to put them into a bag with holes.

“You have looked for much, and, lo, it came to little; and when you brought it home, I blew it away.  Why? says the Lord of hosts.  Because of my house that lies in ruins, while you busy yourselves each with his own house.  Therefore the heavens above have withheld the dew and the earth has withheld its produce.” (Haggai 1:4-10)

There are three things I want to suggest we need to do.

1. First, (metaphorically) take a pair of tweezers and pluck ecclesia out of the mess we (not God) have created in our thinking and set it to one side so we see clearly what is of God and what is of man.
2. Second, without any guilt whatsoever, walk away from all that is not ecclesia.  Stop spending time and resources on it.  God has little interest in it (except perhaps as ‘wood hay and stubble’ to be burned), nor does He have an interest in our being stuck in that mess.  He actually calls us out of it (the meaning of ecclesia) to be separated unto Him and for our gatherings to be likewise.  An old song says, “We are gathering together unto Him; unto Him shall the gathering of the people be”.
3. Third, stop using the word ‘church’ totally.  If we want to refer to what man is building, call it what it is – religious institution.  If we want to refer to what God is building, call it what it is – the bride of Christ, the family of God, the ecclesia.  And its local expression – from “two or three” to hundreds – is not a ‘church’ but a gathering or an assembly or a congregation (which is the word Tyndale used).

Let’s say what we mean and mean what we say and thereby end the confusion for all of humanity’s sake.

Cheers,
Kevin.

Confusing Church (Part 4)

‘Confusing church’ as I have been calling it exists in the most part because man-made institutions and organisations are called ‘church’ while they are not.
Indeed, they are not – neither can they be – ecclesia.  God chooses and calls people, not organisations and institutions.  His ecclesia is made up of ‘living stones’.

Referring to his own day, Paul said that “many are weak and ill and some have died” among the people of God because they “do not discern the Body of Christ correctly”.  In our day this is still extremely prevalent.  We do not discern it correctly, because we do not conceive of it correctly, because we are looking at the seen but not wantthe unseen, with human eyes not spiritual eyes.  Allow me to attempt an analogy that might help a little.

Take a look at the following line of characters.

Maybe it looks like a wall or a fence or a ladder lying down – whatever.  It is just a line of the letter ‘I’ repeated.  It is linear and two dimensional.  But what if I change your perspective a bit?  What if I isolate one of those ‘I’s and then show you what it looks like from a position above and to one side or the other?  Have a look at the picture below.

Suddenly we see that it is not an ‘I’ at all but a three dimensional steel beam.  It just looks like an ‘I’ because of the position I am in.  What if I were to do a 90° turn and step into the gap between two of the ‘I’s in my initial line?  I would see it for what it is – a steel beam going on for who knows how long into a third dimension.

I believe this is our fundamental problem, causing what I have called ‘confusing church’.  We are looking at something trying to determine what it is and boldly making assertions about it.  But what we are looking at is linear and two dimensional to our limited sight.  Using some ideas from the bible, we are seeing only the natural, not the spiritual; we are seeing only the seen, not the unseen.  And, as Paul reminds us, it is the unseen that is eternal and real, way beyond what our old nature tells us is real (2 Corinthians 4:18).

When we stand in Christ and know people according to the Spirit not according to the flesh, we can ‘correctly discern the Body of Christ’, but only then.

We look at a linear history from the first apostles to now and make very dangerous assumptions and proclamations that what we are looking at is the eclesia of God when, in fact, it is just what it claims to be – a historical record of something.  Take a 90° turn and step into the historical record itself and then take the view from ‘above’ where God sits, and you will see that His assessment of what you are looking at is quite different.  “My thoughts are not your thoughts; neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.”

That history is not His ecclesia, but if you live in Christ, by the Spirit, He will show you what in that history belongs to Him and when you step into it, you will find ‘the Body of Christ’ and you will be able to ‘discern the Body rightly’ without fear of loss of anything that truly matters in God’s economy.

The history that is seen is blinding us to the spiritual reality that is unseen – precisely because, all too often, we do not do what apostle Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4:18, “we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.  For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

The church that God is building (the ecclesia) is eternal and can only be correctly discerned by the Spirit; from the position of living and moving and having our being in the Father through Christ.  The only way in which the church that God is building (the Body of Christ; the Bride for His Son) is visible is that all humans who are regenerated by the Spirit are “in the world but not of it” as Jesus said.

Our Lord, Jesus, is visible in the earth because His body parts are or have been in the world, on the earth – “transformed into His likeness”.  That is why Paul (again!) said, “So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view.  At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view.  How differently we know him now!” (2 Corinthians 5:16, NLT) – and I add, how differently we are to know each other now!

We do not get to define church or christian; we do not get to determine who is in and who is not.  On both counts, we would probably get it very badly wrong, and in the process destroy the work that God is doing – and has been doing from the dawn of time.

Jesus is building His ekklesia; it is not for us to try to do His job for Him but to cooperate with Him.  That ekklesia is not seen in the organisations, the institutions, the religions, the programs, the special people, the special days, the special clothing – it is seen in the faces of those Jesus has called and redeemed.  And we tinker with this arrangement at our peril!

When we see the history with only natural eyes, we see what man has built and it belongs to the kingdom of man.  When we stand in Christ and live and move and have our being in Him, we learn to see with spiritual eyes and we discern the Body of Christ correctly.  What we see is what God has built – and continues to build – and it belongs to the Kingdom of God.  Having seen thus, how are things now?  Have God’s thoughts become our thoughts?  Have His ways become our ways?

What’s ‘ekklesia’ for me?  It is the zone and the place ...

• where I am transformed by the grace and power of God and, in the world but not of it, His thoughts are becoming my thoughts and His ways are becoming my ways;
• where that same story is true of you and people the world over;
• where, together, we are His body, His bride, His household, His family, His kin – the home of God.

Cheers,
Kevin.

Confusing Chruch (Part 3)

Continuing our theme of Confusing Church by examining current and recent writers on the subject of ‘church’, here is a paragraph from an Australian writer in 2007.

“Luke writes Acts to tell us not only that Jesus announced the kingdom, but also that the promise is being fulfilled.  The Church is part of that promise.  To that extent it is true: Jesus promised the kingdom and God sent the Church.  The promise is not being fulfilled by a single stroke, as it were, but in two steps: first the Church and then the total fulfilment of the vision.  The Church is nothing other than the place within which and through which the kingdom is coming into being.  It is not itself the kingdom as if it, itself, incorporated God and were a little bit of perfection on earth.  We know this is not true.  But it witnesses to the vision and lives by it.”

-- Being the Church Then and Now: Issues from the Acts of the Apostles

William Loader (2007)

Some of Loader’s statements are correct if ‘church’ = ecclesia; others are only correct if ‘church’ = kuriakos.  Which one is it? 

‘The Church is nothing other than the place within which and through which the kingdom is coming into being’...

...is a true statement if by ‘church’ you mean God’s ecclesia.  However, if what you mean by ‘church’ is the organisations and institutions of man, it is a very debateable statement indeed.  Even at our very best, believers are confusing God’s ecclesia with man’s kuriakos.  We need to sever this connection.  ‘[The church] is not itself the kingdom’ is a true statement.  The kingdom is the whole, ‘the church’ (ecclesia) is a part.  However, ‘the church’ (kuriakos) is neither the kingdom nor a part of it.  But it is true that some people who are members of kuriakos are also truly members and co-inheritors in ecclesia.

‘[The church] is a little bit of perfection on earth’...

...is a true statement if church = ecclesia, untrue if ‘church’ = kuriakos.  Once again, on the subject of ‘perfection’, we have made a total hash of things.  In English, we live and work with the idea that perfect = faultless or sinless.  In the language from which our English New Testament was translated it doesn’t have that meaning at all.  In Greek, perfect = mature, ripe, ready, just right.  It does not mean faultless or sinless.

In fact, the New Testament says we are perfect (or at least would be if we moved on from a diet of milk) – because perfect means mature: ripe and ready for use according to the purpose for which we were made.  So, in this sense, the ecclesia is a little bit of perfection on earth – if we are on track with Apostle Paul in Ephesians 4:11-13.

“He gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and some teachers for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, towards the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God; to a mature man; to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”

And Hebrews 6:1-3.

“Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith towards God, of instruction about washings, and laying on of hands, and the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgement.  And this we will do if God permits.”

If it were not God’s intention that His children grow up to maturity and function as spiritual adults on earth in this life, what is the point of what is happening in these two passages?  What is the point of the five-fold ministry that God has given if it is not for maturity (growing up into spiritual adults) as Paul says?

‘[The church] witnesses to the vision and lives by it’...

...is a true statement if ‘church’ = ecclesia and false statement if ‘church’ = kuriakos.  The vision here in Loader’s article is the Kingdom of God: “first the Church and then the total fulfilment of the vision.”  God’s ecclesia as Headed by Jesus and ordered by the Spirit indeed witnesses to the vision and gives itself to living by it – with more or less success.  However, the plain fact is kuriakos – institutions, organisations and clergy write their own visions and mission statements and then live by them.  In fact, it is most often seen as a sign of weakness or illness if you don’t have vision and mission statements and organise and structure yourself accordingly.  That’s the kingdom of man – not the Kingdom of God.

And we cannot simply justify our positions by saying that ecclesia includes kuriakos or that kuriakos is a part of ecclesia.  We do not have the right to do that.  Ecclesia is God’s and He determines who (never what, I might add) is part of it.

If I were to run a telecommunications business with a name and function similar to Telstra, I do not have the right to claim that it is part of Telstra.  Yet that is precisely what we do when we claim that ‘the church’ (kuriakos) is part of His Church (ecclesia).  Ecclesia is prior and primary and it is the one that belongs to God.  Indeed, only ecclesia can actually legitimately claim to be kuriakos – which means ‘the Lord’s’; His possession.  Our attempts at ‘church’ are confusing to the world and are the result of confusing what man is building with what God is building.

Again, let me say I have enjoyed William Loader’s article – and that of many other teachers in the Body of Christ.  But I believe it is time to end the confusion and choose our words carefully and thoughtfully.  ‘Church’ comes from the Greek kuriakos; ecclesia is a different word altogether.  William Tyndale died as a martyr for the faith hundreds of years ago.  He was murdered because he did a translation of the new testament that did not contain the word ‘church’ – because it is simply not there in the original Greek?

It was King James’ rules for the translation of what we know as ‘the authorised version’ of the bible that immortalised the idea that kuriakos = ecclesia, squarely against the knowledge, the ministry and the hard work of William Tyndale.

Our continuing with this confusion tacitly says that we agree that Tyndale was a heretic and King James got it right.  I, for one, definitely DO NOT AGREE!

Blessings,

Kevin.

Confusing Church (Part 2)

What I am talking about in this little cluster of posts under the title ‘Confusing Church’ is, in a nutshell, that leadership and teaching on the subject of ‘church’ is confusing the Church that God is building – ecclesia – (which is the Body of Christ the Bride of Christ, eternal in the heavenlies, whose architect and builder is God) with the church that man is building – what I call kuriakos – (which is institutions, religious organisations, earth-bound and in a dying state, whose architect and builder is man).

As I have said elsewhere, almost without fail, our leadership and our teaching are conflating the two entirely different and separate things into one, resulting in a murky mass of mediocrity which we call “the Church”.

At the very core of things, I believe, this is the most pertinent explanation for what institution-organisation watchers and commentators call the weak and sickly state of ‘the church’.

When Apostle Paul was teaching the Corinthians, he said that a man can bring judgement onto himself “…if he does not judge the body rightly” – some translations say “discern the body correctly”.  He then explains, “For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and some have died.” (1 Corinthians 11:29-30)

To me, there is little doubt that a similar explanation applies today.  Many of Jesus’ followers are weak and sick and some have died because we are not now – and have not been for hundreds of years – discerning the Body of Christ correctly.  But we will go on seeking other explanations because we don’t like the one Paul raised with the Corinthians.

If you take a look at some earlier posts on this blog, you will see that one of the Protestant Church’s favourite sons – William Tyndale – was murdered for taking the position that the church as we know it is not the ecclesia – the body and bride of Christ.  We still persist with the error he tried to correct over 400 years ago.

It is time we agreed with our Divine Physician and stopped self-diagnosing and self-prescribing.  We find it so hard to bring ourselves to admit that we have got it wrong; that we got it wrong within one hundred years of Jesus’ life on earth; that every generation of the People of God from then til now has had its prophets trying to bring us around to the truth and still we stubbornly refuse.

In point of fact, it goes well back into antiquity.  Prophet Jeremiah (chapter 13) had a job of work to do when God told him to go and buy a linen waistband and wear it for a while without washing it.  He then had to go and bury it in a rock crevice by the Euphrates River.  After some days again, he was instructed to go and retrieve the waistband – only to find that it was ruined and “totally worthless”.

The lesson?  “Just so will I destroy the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem. This wicked people, who refuse to listen to My words, who walk in the stubbornness of their hearts …  Let them be just like this waistband, which is totally worthless.  For as the waistband clings to the waist of man, so I made the whole house of Israel and the whole household of Judah cling to me…that they might be for me a people, for renown, for praise, and for glory; but they did not listen.” (Jeremiah 13:9-11)

I believe we can see ‘the pride of Judah’ today as it was in Jeremiah’s day and in Jesus’ day: that as the ‘chosen race’ (God’s ‘kuriakos’), we are untouchable and we are not sinning.  And I believe we can see ‘the great pride of Jerusalem’ today (again as it was in Jeremiah’s day and in Jesus’ day) in the magnificent buildings we erect ‘to the honour and glory of God’.

Israel pre-Jesus didn’t get it; Israel post-Jesus didn’t get it; the religious elite of our day still don’t get it.  But the worst thing of all is that we stubbornly refuse to side with God, preferring the relative comfort of our buildings, our self-assurance and the safety of being one step removed from the face of God because of our human priesthoods – just like old Israel.

God, speaking through Prophet Isaiah, said of Israel, “Because you have said, ‘We have made a covenant with death, and with Sheol we have made a pact.  The overwhelming scourge will not reach us when it passes by, for we have made falsehood our refuge and we have concealed ourselves with deception’.” (Isaiah 28)

But God’s response is, “Behold I am laying in Zion a stone, a tested stone, a costly cornerstone for the foundation, firmly placed.  He who believes in it will not be disturbed.  And I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the level; then hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies and the waters shall overflow the secret place.”

‘Church’ leadership and institutions and organisations have made lies their refuge and they think that the overwhelming scourge will pass them by because they are ‘God’s possession’ – His kuriakos.  Unfortunately for them, it is not kuriakos that has the imprimatur of God but ecclesia.  That is why institutions, organisations and unscrupulous people, from the end of the first century to now, falsely claim the name ecclesia for who they are and what they do.  Fortunately God knows and, like in Isaiah, “…your covenant with death shall be cancelled, and your pact with Sheol shall not stand.  When the overwhelming scourge passes through, then you become its trampling place.”

The New Covenant people of God are, in God’s sight and according to Apostle Peter, “A chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvellous light; for once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy but now you have received mercy.” (1 Peter 2:9-10)

But the writer to the Hebrews clearly warns, “See to it that you do not refuse Him who is speaking.  For if those did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less shall we escape who turn away from Him who warns from heaven.” (Hebrews 12:25)

You can ignore me all you like (I’m used to it anyway!), but we ignore God at our significant peril – and this is precisely what Christendom has been doing for many hundreds of years.  And today it continues.

God has been saying over and over and over again for hundreds of years that what we call ‘the church’ is not His ecclesia.  The central lie is that they are one and the same thing.  And as is the way with lies, every lie told requires another lie to defend it.  In the end, we have a situation, as Isaiah describes, of making lies our refuge.

Don’t know about you, but I’m getting on board with God and Jesus and Paul and Peter and the writer to the Hebrews – and many hundreds of saints throughout history since Paul died.

The ‘religious club’ is a species alien to God and His kingdom and, no matter how much we like to think otherwise, it doesn’t figure in His eternal plan as is revealed to us by John in the last couple of chapters of Revelation.

Or perhaps it does – could it not be that “a mystery, Babylon the Great” (Revelation 17) actually refers to Christendom – or what we generally call ‘the church’ – the institutions and organisations and priesthoods that have for millennia claimed to be God’s house.  Listen to John’s description:

“And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness; and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast, full of blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns.  And the woman was clothed in scarlet and purple, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a gold cup full of abominations and of the unclean things of her immorality, and upon her forehead a name was written, a mystery, “BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.”

“And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus.  And when I saw here, I wondered greatly.” (Revelation 17:3-6)

It was Christendom who killed the prophets, killed so many saints and killed men like William Tyndale and many besides.  And it is she, so drunk with blood that she, like Israel of old, cannot see her sin.

Over 30 years ago, Robert Burnell wrote a prophecy titled “Escape from Christendom: The Journey” (1980).  It is in the style of an allegory, but it is of immense importance to us here and now. I will let you secure it for yourself from the following URL link:

http://www.fxmissions.com/2010/06/a-message-you-need-to-hear-escape-from-christendom/

[The image at below is part of this document on the fxmissions website.]

In a way, the title says it all.  But let me conclude this post by quoting the final two paragraphs of Burnell’s prophetic vision, in the hope that more of the people of God will see what thousands of years of prophetic ministry have been trying to persuade us of.

"Never has it been more clear to me that two revivals are in progress on the earth. One is the revival of the Spirit of God, by which dead men and women are freed from their sins by the blood of the Lamb and raised to a life which is the life of the sons of God, a life which bears God’s nature, manifests God’s mercy. The other revival is the revival of religious flesh, a revival which is so appealing and gathers such multitudes and wields such power in this world be­cause it offers all the comfort of religion, while allowing you to keep your ego and all rights to yourself.

"Surely each of us has to decide which revival he is going to embrace. Am I going to invest my life in some enterprise of booming Christian City? Or am I going to lose my life in the pursuit of God’s will of mercy? Am I going to concentrate on building something that will cause the citi­zens of Christian City to sit up and take notice? Or am I going to spend my life bringing the poor and the maimed and the halt and the blind to the Master’s table?"

Bless you,

Kevin.