Does God have a definition of 'church'?

If there is one fault with Floyd McClung's view of the definition of church as Jesus drew it (Wed 4 April post: "Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them"), it is that it is too open to us as humans being the ones who determine what "in my name" means.  Most often, I feel, we treat it as some kind of magic spell: if we say it often enough with enough feeling, it becomes true whether it is in fact true or not.  [The subject of "In Jesus' Name" is another post for another time.]

I do not believe that simply pronouncing that a gathering is "in Jesus' name", makes it, in truth, a gathering in His name.  But, for practical purposes, Jesus' statement serves us well in helping us understand that Jesus does not want us to complicate the matter and make it difficult for people to understand and fully enter into.

But, I believe God has a definition of 'church'.  I believe it is a little more detailed than Jesus' statement, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

..oo000oo..

IF there are two groups of people in the world – those who go to church and those who don’t – and God takes His finger and draws a line to delineate those who are lost and those who are saved, His line will doubtless include people from both groups and exclude people from both groups.

That demonstrates at least one thing for certain: there are two things called ‘the church’.  One is God’s definition; one is man’s definition.  If we get nothing else, we must get this.  This is fundamental to understanding the times and having knowledge of what the people of God should do (like the sons of Isaachar in 1 Chronicles 12:32).

IF the scriptures speak a truth when we read there that Jesus responded to some who claimed, “but haven’t we healed the sick and cast out demons in your name” with “Depart from Me, I never knew you”, doesn’t that indicate that we would be very wise indeed to go by His definitions of things?

We go on and on and on about ‘reaching the lost’ and about sinners repenting, but we fail to see that we can be “in the church” of man and NOT “in the church of the Father”.  This is a very un-helpful place to be.  Remember Paul (to the Corinthians) “And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete”.  In God’s economy, we have little to say to the world until our own obedience is complete – and it is far from it.  As we know from Jesus and the first apostles, the gospel of Jesus demands obedience.  Indeed, there is no salvation without it.  While there are so many who are in man’s church but not in the church of the Father, their calls for obedience to the gospel are acts of shameless hypocrisy before men, and outright rebellion towards God.

I believe that God wants to bring a certain 'fire' into our lives that equals God’s finger writing on our wall “you have been weighed in the balance and found wanting”.  His finger of fire draws a line through our structures and paradigms and grids, and highlights those who are His and those who are not.  This is the kind of fire that God wants and is building up to now, I believe.

There is another kind of fire and we must clearly distinguish between the two.  Read Isaiah 50:10-11 and Jeremiah 13:15-17.  Both these prophets spoke to Israel about going into captivity.  Jeremiah warns them to “give glory to the Lord your God before he brings darkness” upon them.  “You hope for light, but He will turn it to thick darkness” is rather tragic and graphic language.

Isaiah, in similar vein, asks “Who among you fears the Lord and obeys the word ...?”   He wasn’t expecting an answer, he was identifying the ones his next phrases refer to: “Let him who walks in the dark, who has no light [remember, the darkness did actually come upon them], trust in the name of the Lord and rely on His God.”

Here is a prophetic vision of the people of God – those who fear Him and obey His words; those INSIDE God’s line of delineation – “walking in darkness and having no light”!  Can you imagine it?  Do you get it?  Sometimes the people of God live in a dark place, without much light, and they are instructed by the servant of the Lord, the prophet as to what to do.  “Trust in the Lord and rely on your God”. (Notice that they have already been described as people who obey the servant of the Lord)

Then comes the warning.  There is absolutely no doubt that the temptation comes, in the midst of darkness and stumbling about, to start fires and light fire-torches (fire-brands) to quell the darkness and stop stumbling about.  The prophet of the Lord says, if you do that, this is what you will get: “you will lie down in torment.” 

THIS kind of fire we do not want.  That is the word of the prophet of the Lord then and it is the word of the prophet of the Lord now.  This is NOT a time for starting our own fires and setting our own fire-brands alight.  This IS a time to “trust in the Lord and rely on your God” who is lighting HIS fires – or, more to the point, drawing his line of fire within and among people and thus setting them on fire with His character, His word and His power.  This must come first, or else the fires that we start will not be the fires of Holy Spirit revival but of the revival of religious flesh.  And we have plenty of that already.

Please take the time to read the following.  It is extracted from around 1995/6 if my memory serves me well.  You will find my name mentioned in passing in this teaching and prophetic word on the Stormharvest.com.au website.

It’s called “Fire Starters - Releasing the Church”, by Robert I Holmes and it reads in part ...

In the Bible, fire symbolises several things. These include: holiness (Zech. 2:5, Deut. 4:24), God's glory (Ezek. 1:4, 13), his protective presence (2 Kings 6:17), His nature (Heb 12:29), His very words (Jer 23:29) which he puts in the mouths of his prophetic servants (Jer 5:14), an instrument of purification (Psalm 66:12, Isa 43:2) and refinement (Zech. 13:8,9, 1 Cor 3:13,15) and lastly as a symbol of His wrath against sin (Isa 66:15,16). All of these things are a part of a ministry coming to the church: the fire starters.

The nature of this ministry was made clear to me on the last day of 1995 when the Lord cam to me and said: "The city of Sydney was set on fire two years ago (January 1994 in fact). It was circled about, and burned throughout by evil pyromaniacs. A dozen wicked men touched the lives of every inhabitant in the Sydney area. These things were a sign. I will again set this city on fire!  But not with evil, but for good, not by fire bugs, but by my Holy Ghost Fire Starters. There are holy men of God, who will spark the fires that touch the lives of every person in my kingdom one way or another!" ....

Then in January 1996 I had a vision confirming this message: In a vision the Lord said to me "Look at the house of Israel", and I looked and saw a teeming multitude. He said "Many who you see in the church are not in the house [of the Lord]. Yet I have my fire starters in every land and province. Behold, I am about to mobilise my church. I will light a fire under them." I looked again at the multitude and saw some lashing themselves, I saw men in chains, and others bound. Some were sitting on the ground rocking back and forth. "See, in the church many are bound by religion. They have been deceived and follow in the traditions of men, they are ignorant of my Son, they ignore Him. See those who have grown cold in captivity. They think they are free but they are bound. They have been taken captive to Babylon in chains. Some whip themselves with the Law, for they are under the Law, and not under Grace". I could feel the Lord's heart, burning for them, burning for the lost, and filled with love for His bride." ...

God is looking for a people He can use to start the fires burning. The fires of repentance, the baptism of the Spirit, a fire under the church! The fire starters will come in this aspect of Christ's ministry, kindling a fire on the earth. ...

From the two revelations I heard at the beginning of this year, it is evident that God shall sovereignly raise up these individuals. Many are in the organisation called the church, yet are not in the house of the Lord. The fire starter will be used of God to lead many to true faith in Christ, many who call themselves by the name of Christ (Christians).

Whatever we do, I plead with you.  Please do not mistake the fires of man for the fire of God’s Spirit for our day.  There are still many lighting their own fires because of the darkness and the gloom and the stumbling about.  It’s the logical thing to do, but they will still produce torment.  Mostly they are political fires – men trying to usher in the Kingdom of God by means of the kingdom of man.  They are not God’s work but man’s, and they will severely slow down – or quench altogether – the fire of the Spirit of God.  If we want the full fire of the gospel of God, first  the fire of God’s holiness must produce repentance and obedience within and among those who will wait patiently for Him and, in that waiting, “trust in the Name of the Lord and rely on their God.”

God's line of delineation distinguishes those who trust Him and rely on Him for their right standing before Him in Jesus Christ, from those who imagine they can be in right standing before God on the basis of their own goodness or their own personal effort - or by a priest or pastor acting in their behalf.

God's definition of church is those who trust in the Lord and rely on God and so stand before Him in Jesus, depending absolutely on the perfect acceptability of Jesus and his life and death on our behalf. 

There is a priest and a mediator between God and us - but it is not another man and it is not a church or a church official - it is, as the bible says, "the man Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5). And it is those who stand in that mediation and who trust in the Lord and rely on God who are the ones who act and speak "in Jesus' name".

Not just anybody who gathers and says, 'we are gathering in the name of Jesus' can claim to be ecclesia - church as Jesus defined it - but those who trust completely in the full and total acceptability of Jesus before the Father and trust in and rely on the Father for their life.  And when they gather - whether it is two or three, or two or three hundred, Jesus is there, in their midst.

That's how I believe God understands church.  I also believe that if we don't so understand it, we cannot make a legitimate claim to be His people.  There are many who are members of the churches of man who are not members of the ecclesia of God; likewise, there are many members of the ecclesia of God who are not members of the churches of man.

And I thank God for that!

Cheers,

Kevin.