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Thursday, March 28, 2024 - 09:37 PM

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA

First Published in 1994

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF
UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA

When Jesus told Peter, “You, Peter, are but a little pebble, and upon the bedrock foundation of Myself I will build My ecclesia,” He used a term – ecclesia – that was known in the Roman-ruled world as the institution by which the ideas and values of the Roman empire were carried to and extended throughout the world. Whenever two or more Roman citizens were gathered in one place, Roman ecclesia was present – the authority of the Roman emperor himself was there with them. So Peter knew exactly what Jesus was saying when He spoke of HIS ecclesia. And Jesus was saying that it would be His work – a work of God and not of men.

Note what Jesus did not do: He did not give Peter any special authority as an individual or as the holder of any authoritative title or office. He did not make Peter the emperor over His earthly kingdom, His ecclesia, as power-hungry men started to say several generations later. In fact, at Jesus’ death, all earthly power structures that manifested any of God’s authority through offices of men ceased. When Jesus’ blood flowed down that cross and He said, “It is finished,” the veil of the temple tore in two. No longer was it necessary to approach God through a human priest; Jesus became our Priest forever! We have – and are to place – NO ONE between us and God! Jesus alone is our Advocate, our King and our Priest.

But what a dangerous thing this was to the Roman Empire. Imagine a people who, although they would not fight against mighty Rome in a physical sense, recognized no King but their risen Savior, who had been crucified on a Roman cross, laid dead in a tomb guarded by Roman soldiers, but then rose from that tomb, walked free and ascended to His throne on high to rule from heaven above! Thus, Christians were persecuted and executed regularly by Rome.

Until Constantine.

Constantine took a different approach. He decided to recognize Christianity as a religion amongst the religions of the world and give it an official status alongside the other “gods” of the earth, adopting the pattern of pagan religions for Christians. Once persecuted and practicing their faith underground, now Christians had their own “church,” a particularly pagan concept, meant for worshiping false gods and demonic deities, and one totally at odds with the ecclesia, mirroring the Roman concept of kingdom advancement, that Jesus had set up. Whereas Christians had been known by their love for each other and their compassion towards others around them who did not yet know their Savior, now they had dedicated edifices, sanctuaries, human priests, liturgy, hierarchical leadership structures, holidays, official status and civil government recognition.

It was a master stroke of genius for the forces of evil, because the effect was to put Christianity – the Way – into a box. It was the boxification of Jesus’ ecclesia.

See, anytime the church attempts to define the Body of Christ in any way besides what scripture shows us is the simple way to become part of God’s ecclesia family, what it thus describes are ways in which that grouping is NOT the Body of Christ. Bear with me here. What does one have to do to “join” the ecclesia, the Body of Christ? Very simply, Romans 10:9 tells us, we must confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart that God has raised Him from the dead. That’s it: confess and believe. When one does that, Jesus told Nicodemus, one is born again – one becomes part of the family of God, the ecclesia. That’s it!

But what of the “local church” – isn’t that taught in scripture? Well, yes and no. Bear with me a bit more.

Paul did write to localized groups of believers across Europe and Asia, and we read those letters addressed to, for example, the ecclesia at Corinth. Now, was that not an organized assembly – a stand-alone ecclesia? Here the article is everything. If we come from the assumption that it DOES address an organized entity, we read it one way (which after 1700 years of organized churchianity is hard not to do); if we come from the understanding that ecclesia is a collective noun, referencing all of those who are part of the Body of Christ, it reads another way.

Let’s say that the US state department wants to put out a travel advisory to all Americans traveling abroad over the holidays and those advisories are going to be posted at public places where Americans are known to be or pass through, like train stations or public coliseums. The advisory in letter form might be addressed to the Americans in Italy or the Americans in Spain (to wherever that particular hardcopy notice was sent), but that does not mean that there are specific organized American entities in those places: it’s just addressed to the Americans (collective noun) who happen to be in those places. It is not written to anyone but Americans, and the adjective associated with each letter is just for the purpose of addressing.

Let’s carry this a bit further. We have been conditioned to believe that a local church is identified or defined by, among other things, its leader(s. A common argument today in the church world is in favor of multiple elders, as opposed to one singular pastor leader or even a “senior pastor.”) But look at the biblical record of the ecclesia who resided at Corinth and see if you can identify even a single elder (overseer) amongst them. Good luck; there’s not one mentioned. Another identifier is Sunday meetings. Look for that phenomenon also in the New Testament. It’s not in there. Nor are the vast majority of practices that have come to be associated with church meetings. In fact, the ONLY place in the New Testament where we read anything resembling a “template” for meeting practices is in I Corinthians 14, and almost NO church comes close to following that format. The church may be defined in terms of meetings – Sunday or whenever – but the ecclesia is not.

And here’s the thing: God did not give us structures that were designed to – or that could even ever be used to – tie us down and restrict us. He came to give us perfect freedom – in Him. His ecclesia is His family on earth, and when family acts as God designed family to be and act, it is a loving, nurturing, mutually-accomplishing support structure. One has perfect freedom in the family of God to be and enjoy all that He designed family to be. Think of a baby in the womb – perfect freedom. That’s all that that baby knows – it is his world, and while there, he has perfect freedom to be the growing baby that God designed him to be. And when he is born out of the womb, it’s into another womb, also of God’s design (though in both “wombs” man’s sinful encroachments can and do create great difficulties.)

In this world we will have tribulation, scripture tells us, and in the midst of that tribulation, family is part of the womb that shrouds and protects us. When that womb – the ecclesia – is as God designed, it is a wonderful thing. Otherwise it is a harsh, cold and unfriendly thing like that seen on sci-fi movies – a boxified environment constructed of man-made substitutes for the perfect plan of God.

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