It is unequivocally my clear contention that Australia has yet to see, hear and experience a full and unadulterated presentation of the good news of the kingdom of God in Jesus Christ, and of the revelation of ekklesia and the new covenant as delivered to apostle Paul.
According to the letter written by Jude, a half-brother of
Jesus, “the faith” was “once for all handed down to the saints” (1:3): once for everybody (Jew and non-Jew
alike); and once for all time. And according to Ephesians, that ‘handing
down’ was to apostle Paul: “the stewardship of God’s grace which was given to
me for you [Gentiles]; that by
revelation there was made known to me the mystery...” (3:2-3) And the ‘mystery’ is not some weird invention
of Paul himself but “the mystery of Christ, which in other generations was not
made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles
and prophets by the Spirit.” (3:5).
When Paul said in 3:3 “as I wrote before in brief”, I
believe he was referring to an earlier part of this same letter, quite probably
1:3-14. And, to be sure, that passage is
a ‘brief’ restatement compared to his other writings of Romans and Galatians.
The central core of his message – not dreamed up but
received by revelation from the triune God – was that, since Jesus and in and through Jesus, the blessings of
God were now available to Gentiles (non-Jews) or ‘Greeks’ as Paul often referred to them. And indeed that was a true ‘mystery’ to most
Jews, being written about in type and symbol in their sacred writings but
largely not comprehended or understood.
The most galling part (to the Jews) of Paul’s revelation was
that the new revelation included the point that one does not have to keep the
‘Law of Moses’ to be reconciled and justified in God’s sight. To this day, it galls many, to the extent
that people write and preach sincerely and loudly that Paul is in fact the
“false apostle” of Revelation – precisely because he teaches that one can be
right with God without the need to keep the Jewish law.
Paul’s message is both the revelation of what was previously
‘hidden’ and of how this is a profound act of grace on God’s part which should
not be trifled with or trivialised – least of all should it be corrupted by permitting
the Mosaic law to creep back in. Paul
fought for this his entire post-Damascus life and many attempts were made on
his life. Eventually his opposition
succeeded in having him assassinated.
Nevertheless, he died true to the revelation.
Jude in his short letter (see above) is arguing for the same
thing when he says, “I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was
once for all handed down to the saints. For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long
beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace
of our God into wanton violence and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus
Christ.” The central reason for the
revelation and for the act of Grace on God’s part was the point that most of
the Jews then and many still today reject Jesus as Master, Lord and Christ.
Bringing this back to Australia today, my chief contention
is that what Australia got was a corrupted version of the apostolic doctrine
and Pauline ‘mystery’. And I point
specifically to the systems, structures, hierarchy and ‘rites’ of religious
culture and practice in what we call “the church”; to our consistent failure to
‘earnestly contend for the faith’ as Jude urged; and to not noticing legalists
creeping in – because we rely on logic, natural desires and human planning
instead of the Spirit-gifted persons God has provided for us. These people, incidentally, are part of the
Divine plan, the ‘mystery’ and the revelation of Paul (see Ephesians 4), yet we
so easily abandon them for a system that mimics the thoughts, practices and
theology of old Israel. Then we brand it
all with a word stolen from the Pauline revelation (ekklesia) and think that sanitises it and makes it what it patently
cannot be.
My contention is that ‘church’ and ekklesia are NOT – repeat NOT – the same thing: not now, not then,
not ever. In fact, I contend that what
we know as ‘church’ in the White history of Australia is a case-in-point of
“certain persons have crept in unnoticed”; of the “leaven” of Galatians 5; of
those whom Paul wished would “go and mutilate themselves”; of the tares in
among the wheat that Jesus spoke of (Matthew 13).
My contention is that ‘church’ shares almost nothing in
common with the revelation of Paul and the mystery of the Grace of God in Jesus
Christ; and that it shares much in common with Old Testament Judaism –
including its moral code and religious rites.
And that is what we have preached; and that is what Australians consistently
dislike. We have not received and passed
on Paul’s revelation and the mystery of the Grace of God in Jesus Christ;
instead we have received and passed on the very thing Paul was fighting against
as we see it in the book of Acts: the redemption of Jesus on condition that we
keep the law. And this despite the fact
that part of Paul’s revelation is that the law is fundamentally, totally and
absolutely unable to save a Gentile!
My contention is that we must make a clear separation in our
message between the good news of the kingdom of God in Jesus Christ [the
revelation of Paul and the mystery of the grace of God] on the one hand, and
‘religion’, church and a rites-based ‘faith’ on the other. Church has stolen ekklesia and we need to steal it back – alternatively, we could
find a new word. But whatever word we
use, it must mean basically the opposite of what we know as ‘church’.
The “faith which was once for all handed down to the saints”, from its earliest time, has been persistently assaulted by “certain persons [creeping in] unnoticed”. Luke wrote about it in Acts 15:1: “Some men came down from Judea and began teaching the brethren, ‘Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved’.” They managed to hit it on the head, but it never went away. Eventually the Judaisers won and today the “faith which was once for all handed down to the saints” is the heady domain of debated theology, not the life and times of the everyday christian.
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