The Household of God (1)

At the end of the final post in the What does Ecclesia look like? series, I raised the issue that often comes up when I discuss this subject: So What?

Sometimes I find it hard to understand that people don't see the implications of some truth or a new idea for us humans.  If what I have said is true, there are enormous, earth-shaking if not earth-shattering implications for humans generally, and for Christians in particular.

At the end of that post, I constructed a large dot-point list of some of the many implications of the teaching in that series.  That list serves as a kind of hook into this series.

At the beginning of this series of posts, I note that one implication in particular relates to this question: "If not 'church', then what?"  My answer to that question is ...

THE HOUSEHOLD OF GOD.

So let's begin a new adventure.

When you spend a lot of your time writing, there is something unique about that moment when you realise you are not alone in how you see things.  That feeling came over me when I found the page “What is the Ecclesia?” by Ben Williams.

Ben Williams has written:

"Ecclesia" is an entirely different word with an entirely different meaning than "kuriakos" ("church")

Eventually, through the manipulation of organized religion, "church" came to replace "ecclesia" by popular acceptance. Indeed, churches have achieved their goal-- to neutralize Christians!

Thousands of times a week, all over the globe, preachers are heard to say, “The Greek word for ‘church’ is ecclesia.  And that is the big lie of it all.  The Greek word for ‘church’ is kuriakos and it is not used in the New Testament at all to speak of the new covenant people of God.  It literally means “belonging to the Lord” and it is used once in 1 Corinthians 11:20 when speaking of the Lord’s supper and once in Revelation 1:10 where John says he was “in the Spirit on the Lord’s day.”

The Greek word that is used in the New Testament for the new covenant people of God is ekklesia and it should never be translated ‘church’.

This graphic comes from the website I linked to above.

Throughout my writings, I use the Anglicised spelling ecclesia, but it is the same word.  So… what was an ecclesia in the time of Jesus and Paul?

I believe Williams is correct when he says, on the above website,

The Greek "ecclesia" was "a civil body politic." This is strong proof that the Christian "ecclesia" we read about in the New Testament was an INDEPENDENT CIVIL BODY OF CHRISTIANS -- independent from rulers and man's government. Their objective was to be free to serve King Jesus. This phenomenon had nothing to do with building and attending churches! Churches are NOT ecclesias!

If one takes the Old Testament (old covenant) paradigm, God’s chosen people are referred to as His Possession and the place where He meets with His chosen people – whether temple or tent – is His house.  In Greek, ‘His Possession’ translates as Kuriakos; the place where He meets with His people is called the Kuriakos doma – the ‘domicile’ or address for the meetings of God with His chosen people.  That was part of the prescription for the people of God pre-Jesus.

In the new covenant however – that is since Jesus – you will not find this concept.  Since in the new covenant God doesn’t dwell in temples made with hands, the New Testament scriptures use a different expression altogether.  And even when the writers wanted to talk about the concept of ‘God’s House’, they did not choose to use kuriakos doma – they used the term oikos theos, the household of God.

And here’s the really good part – they took the common word for a civil body of people and put it to a new use describing God’s new covenant people as distinctly different from His old covenant people.

Ben Williams puts it well:

“What, then, did the writers of the New Testament mean when they used the word "ecclesia" to describe a Christian body of people? Obviously, they meant the same thing: a body of Christians called out of the Roman and Judean system to come together into a separate civil community. It meant a politically autonomous body of Christians under no king but Jesus. No man ruled them! Only Christ. And, that was the reason these same Christians ran into trouble with kings and rulers; got in trouble with Caesar; were arrested, crucified and martyred. They dropped Caesar and took up Christ.

The ecclesias were diametrically opposed to the Caesars of the world. This is the well-hidden secret about the ecclesia!

Many people are seriously uncomfortable with any suggestion that God has changed, citing the scripture, “I am the Lord; I change not”.  But any careful and honest reading of the Old Testament scriptures will show that God Himself hasn’t changed, but rather it is the ‘administration of the realm’ that has changed.  And I don’t mean that a ‘new guard’ has replaced the ‘old guard’.

Imagine a company decides, through fair and legal means, to keep the same board and the same staff, but change its driving vision and the structures through which it delivers its products and services.  I believe it is the same with God in relation to us humans.

The scriptures say, concerning Jesus, “But when the fullness of time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order that He might  redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons” (Galatians 4:4-5).

God was and is working to “… His eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Ephesians 3:11).  Under the provisions of the old covenant operating in the human time-space continuum, God would bless His people on the basis of their adhering to the rules and regulations He gave them – until Jesus.  When Jesus came, the provisions of the old covenant became obsolete and Jesus Himself became the inaugurator of an entirely new covenant – one in which God adopts humans (whether Jew or not) into His family on the basis of the finished work of Jesus in redemption, justification and freedom, in return for those humans entrusting their entire lives (temporal and eternal) to Jesus.

Apostle Paul makes it quite clear that his apostolic commission was to announce, proclaim and herald this new administration and how it works.  Ephesians 3 gives us a good insight into this.

And in this new régime, it is no longer kuriakos doma but oikos theos; no longer God visiting a building, but God’s very own household.  And this household is known as “The Ecclesia of God” – quite literally, the assembly or congretation of God.  Read 1 Timothy 3:14-15.

At no point does Paul revert to the old covenant thinking or language to describe the new covenant people of God or to explain the God-revealed provisions of that new covenant relationship.

Unfortunately, the creature we call “the church” does this all the time, and has done so from the earliest time – I suggest from the time of Paul himself.  [Read the Acts 17 account of Paul and Silas.]  Paul was constantly up against it with the religious nutters of the day; and some of his letters contain strong references to the insidious work of ‘Judaisers’ insisting on carrying the provisions of the old covenant into the new covenant.  Paul never backed away from resisting these incursions – even when it meant a conflict with a fellow-apostle.

Williams makes this important observation: “The ecclesias were diametrically opposed to the Caesars of the world.  This is the well-hidden secret about the ecclesia.”

Encyclopaedia Britannica has this notable entry:

In the New Testament, "ecclesia" (signifying convocation) is the only single word used for church. It (ecclesia) was the name given to the governmental assembly of the city of Athens, duly convoked (called out) by proper officers and possessing all political power including even juridical functions.

An Oxford Dictionary entry under ‘congregation’ says this:

...used by [William] Tyndale as a translation of "ecclesia" in the New Testament, and by the sixteenth century reformers instead of "church”.

And Williams continues:

I have a Geneva Bible (Calvin's Bible) in my office. It, too, comes from the sixteenth century. But, unfortunately, Calvin wanted the word "church" in his Geneva version. Nonetheless, godly Tyndale, and other sixteenth-century reformers who were more reputable than Calvin, did not like the word "church." They used other words like "congregation," "governmental assembly," etc.

I agree fully with Williams on this matter.  And I still struggle to find the best word to use to describe and explain what I mean.  One thing I have found useful is to use a word that has not been in use for a very long time: exclave.

Paul speaks of new covenant believers as ‘ambassadors for Christ’; an ambassador’s base of operations is an Embassy;  an Embassy is an exclave of its home country, geographically cut off from home and located entirely within a ‘foreign’ country.  Paul also describes believers in this world as ‘foreigners’, ‘aliens’ and ‘strangers’.

So…. I may talk about a congregation, an assembly, a gathering, an exclave; made up of ambassadors, foreigners, aliens, strangers; here in our world, spiritually but not geographically attached to eternity where God dwells in “unapproachable light” as Paul described it to Timothy (1 Tim 6:16).  Now we’re getting close to an appropriate translation of the Greek ekklesia.

“The Church”, in its arrogance and its interminable quest for legitimacy, has plagiarised the word ekklesia and given it a false meaning, designed to make “church” appear to be the inheritor of God and the Bride of Christ.

Thus the foundation for everything that follows here is this:

• "the church” is NOT the ecclesia: not now, not ever;
• ecclesia is God’s household of ambassadors – an exclave of saints.

I wish you well,
Kevin.