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.
Kevin.
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