The Modern Church &
Grace
The early church, according
to Acts, was under a new covenant. This new covenant was one God made with man
when Christ died on the cross. If we look at the ‘operating system’ accorded
to the contemporary western church and compare it to the way the early
Christians operated, we’ll find a grand spiritual canyon separating the two.
In this chapter I’ll attempt to explore where that canyon came from and how it
can be crossed.
Under the old covenant, the
Levite priests served God’s people and provided them with the spiritual input
they needed. For their efforts, the priests were rewarded with all their
physical needs, such as food and shelter, being met by the work efforts of
others. In several different ways, the priests were the ‘lifeline’, as it
were, to God. This was the old covenant, a point that needs to be made time
and time again, or so it seems. Under the new covenant we are all priests of
the King, and we submit to one another in love, sharing all things in common.
Unfortunately, every ‘church
system’ this writer has ever studied appears to still operate under the old
covenant. Even as I write this text, I feel like I should have called this
chapter ‘Stating The Obvious’, but obvious or not, it needs to be said. So if
you’ve got an entire religious system operating under the old covenant 'Levite
Priest’ modus operandi, is it any wonder that God withholds His Spirit? We’ve
set up a system that mirrors the old covenant, then we go around claiming we’re
‘not under law’ we’re under grace’. I beg to differ, actually, we are under law
; but by our own choosing. God has made all the provisions necessary for us to
operate under the freedom of grace, but we choose, as a body, to remain under
law and then question ‘what’s gone wrong here?’
The amount of times I’ve been
into church services where the people are obviously miserable and if they
smiled their face would crack. We sing songs like “when the Spirit of the Lord
is in my heart, I will dance like David danced”, but the stupid thing is we
don’t actually dance while we’re singing it, just stand there like stunned
mullets. C’mon folks, am I making this up or is this what actually
happens? These are the effects and bondage’s of operating under an old
covenant legal system when God desires us to come under His new covenant of
grace through the Messiah, Jesus Christ. If we look once again to the book of
Acts, we’ll see [as previously stated], that they submitted to one another in
love. The pertinent and much forgotten part of this statement is ‘in love’.
Basically, their submission to each other was based on showing the love of
Christ to one another. Therefore, regardless of a person’s so called
‘standing’ in the body of Christ, if that person does not show one the love of
Christ, then you have no biblical obligation to submit to that person. This is
one of the most basic new covenant teachings, and appears to have been grossly
disregarded.
People often argue against
the above statement by citing the actions of David in regard to his treatment
by King Saul. As we know, during some of the time that Saul was king, he
treated David very badly, yet David continued to respect Saul’s God given
appointment, and refused to kill Saul. Once again, in this case, we must remember
that both David and Saul lived under the old covenant. At this time, David was
required by God to submit to the leadership of Saul until such time as God
chose to raise David up to the position of king. We, on the other hand, do not
live under the old covenant that they lived under, and this is proved by the
very fact that killing an irritating member of the brethren is not even an
option for us, though sometimes we may wish it were.
Under the new covenant, we
are required to show love, grace and mercy to all, but we are not required to
submit to someone who does not show us the love of Christ. By the same token,
we should not expect anyone to submit to us unless we have done likewise.
Under the new covenant, it is very much a two way street, with all parties
involved expected to submit to one another. Because of the spirit of control
that is naturally in human beings as a result of our sin nature, I expect this
to be a very unpopular teaching. It was certainly very unpopular with the
church leaders 2,000 years ago when Jesus taught the same thing. The Pharisees
cleverly branded Jesus a rebel, because He refused to submit to them. Their
apparent ‘cleverness’ was only born of worldly wisdom and they were proved
wrong soon after when the tomb was found empty!
The whole concept of ‘you
must submit to this person, because he or she is high up in the church system’,
is not a biblical concept, it’s a satanic one. The biblical concept is much,
much different. The biblical truth is that we ‘submit to one another, in
love’. That love being the love of Christ. That means that the greatest in
God’s kingdom is required to submit to the least, if the least shows love. Quite
a challenging concept really, and one that will probably only reach full
fruition in the new millenium. So where did the whole concept of ‘hierarchy’
creep back into the Christian church? In order to understand this, we need to
take some time to look back in history. Let’s go way, way back and take a look
at good old Gnosticism!
Actually, there’s nothing
that good about it, the Gnostics were basically satanic and it’s possible that
their doctrines were creeping into the church in germ form whilst the New
Testament was still being written. Colossians 2:8 and 2:18 [19] may even
have been a reference to the influence of the early Gnostics. Colossians 2:8
reads ‘Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit,
according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the
world, and not according to Christ.’
So, what were the Gnostics
all about? Basically, Gnosticism was a product of religious fusion that characterised
the first century. The Gnostics borrowed elements from Christianity, Oriental
mysticism, Judaism and Greek Philosophy to construct a system that sought to
combine revelation with ‘the wisdom of this world’. The Greek word ‘gnosis’
actually means ‘knowledge’ or in some dictionaries ‘spiritual knowledge’, which
in itself doesn’t seem so bad. But once we get an understanding of the spirit behind
this particular type of ‘search for knowledge’, we can begin to recognise it’s
demonic roots.
It is very likely that
Gnosticism sprung up out of Ebionism, as one branch at least of the Ebionites
taught a kind of Jewish-Christian Gnosticism. Ebionism was quite prominent in
the second century, seems to have originated in Palestine and took a variety of
forms. Some groups of the Ebionites appeared to have been quite clear on the
essentials of salvation whilst at the same time being insistent on law keeping
as a way of life. Paul clearly rejected such notions and in his letter to the
Galatians he clearly rebuked them for teaching salvation through law keeping.
Since the fall, human beings, through our sin nature, have been attracted to
the idea of salvation through a series of good works, and it was in this
deceitful teaching that the success of the Ebionites lay. In fact, Paul,
Barnabas and Silas were already condemning this type of teaching long before
Paul wrote to the Galatians. In the letter they wrote to the gentiles in Acts
15:24 we read ‘Greetings, since we have heard that some who went out from us
have troubled you with words, unsettling your souls, saying “You must be
circumcised and keep the law” – to whom we gave no such commandment’ etc. The
letter goes on to explain to them that they are not required to live under the
yoke that some misguided believers were attempting to put them under. But what
stands out here is that Paul, Barnabas and Silas were saying ‘we gave them no
such commandment’ [to teach law].
The Ebionites had trouble
accepting the deity of Christ because He was the human son of Mary. This did
not fit with their warped monotheism, so they concocted the idea that Christ
had been rewarded with a type of Messiahship because of His observance of the
law. This, of course, opens the door to the idea that we can all become ‘mini
deities’ through observance of the law, appealing to our pride the same way
Satan’s lie appealed to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden – “You will be like
God” [Gen. 3:5b].
Because the writings of Paul
proved such a thorn in the flesh of the Ebionites, they basically rejected Paul
as an apostle and rejected his writings. Instead, the Ebionites tended to
uphold Peter as the ‘apostle of the circumcision’. They put much stress on
upholding of the law, circumcision and Sabbath keeping in particular. As
previously stated, one branch of the Ebionites then went on to teach a kind of
Jewish/Christian Gnosticism. Although on the surface Ebionism seemed to have
died out by the fifth century, the influence of their doctrines amongst the
Gnostics affects us all to this day.
The Gnostics basically taught
that matter was evil and spirit was good. This proved a big problem, as they
had to explain how a good God could have created a world that was now evil.
They determined that emanating from God was an infinite chain of beings that
became increasingly evil. Finally, according to them, was a Demiurge, or evil
God, whom they thought to be the creator of the world and of man, and whom they
identified with the Jehovah of the Old Testament. Once again, the bible teaches
the opposite. We understand from Ezekiel 28 and many other scriptures, that
Satan was in fact the founder of evil through his own pride and selfish desires.
Basically, they ended up
believing in two Gods, a good one and a bad one. Gnosticism taught that the
good God took pity on us and sent Christ to dispel us from spiritual darkness,
but that atonement through His death was not necessary. The emphasis in the
Gnostic system was on attaining knowledge from the good God, which in turn
would ensure salvation. This is actually the complete opposite to the true
gospel preached by Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
Now, if all this is not scary
enough, it gets worse. The Gnostic system was one that relied heavily on
aristocracy. They believed that some, only a few, were born true Gnostics. The
‘true Gnostic’ was born with a high degree of intuitive knowledge of the ‘good
God’. Ordinary church members, on the other hand, were expected to obtain
their salvation only through good works and faith in the Gnostic system. The
rest of humanity was unlikely to be saved at all. Because of the mixture of
their religion with eastern mysticism they also believed the average church
member could attain an experience with God through marriage to Christ and
baptism combined with mystical rites of the church.
Although Gnosticism appears
in the history books to have had a short life, its effect on the Christian
church has been very long lasting. Because of their aristocratic belief
system, the Gnostics helped to foster the growth of ‘hierarchy’ within the
Christian church. They were fundamental in dividing the Christian church into
higher and lower orders [clergy and laity]. Despite fierce opposition from the
great polemicists, in particular Tertullian, Irenaeus and Hippolytus, the
‘higher and lower orders’ stayed.
This, quite bluntly, was
never God’s will for His beloved church. The bible clearly shows that all
persons who are born again become priests with Christ. In God’s kingdom,
no-one is higher and no-one is lower and we submit to one another one way only
– in love. That love being ‘Christ like’ love, not humanly love.
Quite simply, the world wide
Christian church systems that promote hierarchy, aristocracy, aloofness of
clergy, upper and lower orders, etc, are simply not of God. Fortunately, I’m
not trying to win any popularity contests this week, as I’m sure the above
statement may adversely affect my chances. Based on the historical evidence,
it must be clear that the early apostles never instituted higher and lower
orders within the church. The Lord Jesus most certainly never suggested any
such thing. In fact, He did the opposite. When the people tried to bestow the title
of ‘good teacher’ on Him, He wouldn’t even accept it. If the divine Messiah,
Savior of the human race, rejected a title whilst He walked the earth, then how
vain and pitiful is it for men to bestow titles on themselves? Whether the
title is Reverend, Pastor, Bishop, Teacher, Prophet or whatever, it seems the
whole process is simply born out of man’s vanity. Especially when we consider
that the whole idea of exalting one person above another came out of a Satanic
combination of Ebionism and Gnosticism. People who continue to practice such
tradition continue to fulfill Satan’s idea of ‘church’.
God’s idea of the church is
completely different. It’s no use saying ‘Oh well, brother that’s just the way
it is’. Godly men throughout history who’ve stood up and said ‘The way it is is
wrong!’ are the one’s God has used to institute change. Some people will argue
against what I’ve said with the old cliché of “Oh, but brother, we’ve got to
respect God’s appointed”. No! The bible teaches we’ve got to respect EVERYONE!
It’s one thing to recognise that God is using a particular individual at a
particular point in the time continuum. It’s a completely different thing
again to then exalt that individual to a place of status above the rest of us.
The bible teaches that we’re all equal in the sight of God, that all have
sinned and fallen short of His glory.
At the end of the day, the
entire demonic hierarchical church system that so many of our brothers and
sisters live under has undermined and retarded the ability of God’s soldiers to
move forward. The whole system is based on “I’m the boss and you’re not, so
you do what I say”. It’s a spirit of control, and only those who are deceived
would submit to it. When the church system acknowledges that all are equal in
the sight of God and that no particular individual has any greater ‘rights’
than the next, then we’ll be getting somewhere. All the nonsense I’ve seen in
churches makes me sick. They take rich and influential people, so called ‘full
time’ ministers etc and sit them at the front of meetings with great pomp and
ceremony. ‘Look who we’ve got at our meeting, someone important’. To start
with, we’re all full time ministers, if we’re born again, so how come some get
the label and some don’t. You can thank the Gnostics for that!
Some of us long for the day
when the poor man, the one who has no money, no title and no worth [in the eyes
of men], is taken to sit at the front of the meeting and treated with love and
dignity. But that will never happen, will it, it’s far too biblical?! Let’s
just stick with our Gnostic Satanic system of church hierarchy instead, whilst
we sit around and wonder about why God doesn’t seem to be turning up any more.
People often say to me ‘How
comes God does so many miracles in China and not in the western countries?’ The obvious answer
to me seems to be this; the Chinese people have established a church very
similar to that of the early church we see in the Book of Acts. They submit to
one another in love. Their house churches have leaders, but those leaders bear
no title and have normally only reached any guidance role because of great
persecution and suffering. They all serve each other in love, and, generally
speaking, no one individual is exalted above another.
We in the west, on the
other hand, operate a church system of higher and lowers orders that was
introduced to us not by the bible, but by the Gnostics, who were unwitting
servants of Satan. We refuse to consider the idea of change because we like
hanging on to tradition and we’ve become accustomed to being under the bondage
of the law. In simple terms, it should be obvious why God pours out miracles
by His Spirit in China, but not so much in the western countries. God still
loves the Christians of the west just as much, but it is up to us to come out
of bondage. Like the Galatians, it seems we have more fear of man than fear of
God.
You may be now thinking I’ve
said enough on this point, but I’d like to point out another major downfall of
the Clergy and Laity system. Because we are divided into two orders, one
supposedly higher than the other, the laity at the bottom end of the scale are
constantly degraded, and I’ve already stressed that point in a variety of ways.
But what of the upper echelon of church society, those wonderful individuals
that make it to the esteemed position of clergy. These poor souls,
unfortunately, having once reached the dizzy heights of ‘minister’, are then
required to perform.
What’s this you say?
Perform? That’s right. With the entire second rate Christian laity spectating,
it turns into a case of …….. “Roll up, roll up, roll up! Come one, come all.
Come and see the clergy perform! It’s a new act every week. That’s right
folks, just put ya’ money in the basket, sit back and enjoy the show! This
week Reverend Wingnut will present his sermon on ‘How To Be A Good Christian’.
Should be a good one, don’t miss it! He’ll also be juggling pineapples in the
second act. Come one, come all, and see Reverend Wingnut and his band of
performing chimpanzees!”
And so, once having been
promoted to the illustrious position of ‘preacher’ or ‘pastor’ or ‘bishop’ or
whatever, the poor old clergy type person, unaware that they too are serving
under the Gnostic/Ebionistic hierarchical system of ‘religi-anity’, slave away
for the rest of their lives trying to please the ‘lay people’. Of course, the
laity will never be pleased, because they too are stuck in the same bondage but
at a different [imaginary] level. Therefore, with both sides of the fence
effectively unaware that we’re actually all priests in the kingdom of God, the
system drags along enslaving the clergy as well. Because neither clergy nor
laity are able to walk in the Spirit under the weight of a non-biblical system,
the clergy also burn out. Under God’s system, the load would be spread amongst
all of us, but under the devil’s system, the clergy put on the show and the
rest spectate. No wonder so many so-called ‘leaders’ [of various name tags],
burn out. Many try hard, but are operating in a system that was designed [by
Satan], to fail. So despite their best efforts, they end up frustrated,
depressed and lonely.
The only solution, and the
obvious one, is to return to the biblical system of new covenant church, as
outlined first by Jesus, and then demonstrated again in the book of Acts. I’m
not surprised about the prophecies I’ve heard recently that God will send
missionaries from China and other similar places to the western nations. I firmly
believe this will happen, so we westerners can be trained in the biblical way
to operate as members of the body.
During my time as a
Christian, I’ve been appalled at the number of church leaders who won’t support
anything that doesn’t promise to build their own little empire. To even suggest
to most leaders that building God’s kingdom is actually more important than
building their little empires seems to leave most, at best, distant and at
worse, irate. I now realise that one of the reasons for this is the fact that
their Gnostic/Christian bible college training has taught them that they must
get as many as possible into ‘their building’ in order to get in the good books
with God. Having now studied the reasons behind it all, I find myself filled with
compassion for all concerned. I have compassion for the ‘higher order’, as
they’ll never live up to the spiritual demands of the laity. I have compassion
for the ‘lower order’, as they’ll always feel second rate and be trying to work
their way to heaven.
The only hope we have as a
group is for someone to stand up and truly preach equality for all. Oh
actually, I think someone already has? That’s right, yeah, I remember him now, his
name was Jesus.
Chapter 2
After reflecting on the last
chapter, I feel a sense of obligation to now re-name all the church
denominations. From now on I will refer to them as the Gnosthlics, the Gnoslicans,
the Gnostecostals, the Evangnosticals and the Seventh Day Ad-Gnostics.
There was once a Chinese
Christian brother who was used by God to help establish the underground Christian
church in China. He made an interesting observation regarding the
difference between the Christian brothers and sisters in the ‘State Church’ and
those in the underground church. He basically said that the members of the
underground church realised that many within the State Church system
were actually born again. Unfortunately, despite being born again, he described
them as being like ‘caged birds’. I wonder whether this analogy only applies
to China, or whether we are seeing something similar developing here in the
western nations.
Many Christian organisations
and churches in western nations seem to now be tightly controlled by government
legislation, insurance law/s, tax laws, public opinion and in particular, what
we’ll call ‘political and social correctness’. The latter seems to have the
most control of all on church institutions. For instance, repentance is no
longer preached in some churches because the concept [and it is only a concept
for many Christians], is seen as socially incorrect.
The watering down of the
gospel seems to be on the increase in many church institutions, and I would
venture to suggest that another reason, aside from social correctness, is
money. Many Christian institutions have climbed in bed with the Federal and
State governments so they can access government funding. By doing so, they
then have to play by the government rules rather than God’s rules. They
justify this by quoting bible verses out of context about ‘being in subjection
to government authorities’, etc. If we look at the example of Daniel, it is a
good one to understand God’s concept of ‘subjection’. Daniel submitted to the
Babylonian system to the degree he needed to, whilst still following God. The
moment they asked him to do anything that required him to compromise God’s
ways, he stubbornly refused. By so doing, Daniel found himself in the lion’s
den and God’s glory was subsequently seen by all. Some modern church
institutions have twisted God’s word in regard to government subjection to suit
their own ends, ultimately evil ends. Compromising the gospel to obtain favours
from government or business people is a “sell out”! This type of behaviour is
not of God. ‘Nuff said.
Now, where was I? Oh yes,
the bird in the guilded cage. So it seems a situation is developing where many institutionalised
Christians in western nations have become like their Asian counterparts in the Chinese State Church.
Although many are born again, it’s like they live their lives like a bird in a
cage. Of course, there are some advantages of caged living. Firstly, it’s
safe. The bars protect the bird from cats and other nasty predators.
Secondly, the owner of the bird normally provides food and water every day. The
food is pretty bland, but at least it’s regular. Thirdly, the kindly owner
normally reaches their hand in once a week and cleans out all the poo. So the
life of the caged bird is safe, blandly fed but well fed, reasonably poo-less
and undoubtedly lonely and boring. In fact, so boring that many caged birds
end up a little insane.
The uncaged bird, or wild
bird, on the other hand, lives a completely different existence. Life for the
wild bird is dangerous, unpredictable and exciting. They never quite know where
their next feed is coming from. They don’t get lonely as they exist in a
community of other free and happy wild birds. From time to time one of them
gets eaten by a predator, but this is the reality of their lifestyle. They can
fly wherever they desire, soaring on the wind high above the confines of the
natural world. They see and experience things that the caged bird will never
even dream of. There is no comparison between the two types of existence.
Now here is the sad part.
Some caged birds become so accustomed to the cage, so dysfunctional, so dependent
and so insane that if you left the cage door open they still wouldn’t leave.
They would just sit in the cage, staring at the open door, too frightened and demoralised
to even consider ‘flying the coop’. Instead, they’d prefer to sit on their
imitation branch and wait for the next round of bland bird seed and poo
removal. Friends, the reality is that there are some Christian brothers and
sisters who have spent so long in their cage now, they’ll never leave. They’re
too dependent, too frightened and partially insane. They’ll sit in that walled
building for the rest of their lives, waiting for their pastor to hand out
another round of bird seed and clean up this week’s poopsies. That’s the
reality.
Occasionally, Christians from
various denominations ask me to come and have a look in their cages. I’ll
sometimes fly close to the bars and have a look at what’s going on, but I
rarely hang around lest someone should slam the cage door and I get trapped in
there. I like it out in the open, soaring on the spiritual wind. That's the
place for me. It’s unpredictable, dangerous and exciting. You can see things
that most don’t even dream of. You never quite know where the food is coming
from, but it always turns up. Life for the ‘free Christian bird’ is
adventurous and filled with variety. Sometimes it’s hard. Perhaps it will
start raining and you get caught out in the open, you may even catch a cold.
This doesn’t happen to the caged bird, because they’ve got a permanent little
roof over their heads.
If you’ve ever watched wild
birds near a birdcage, you’ll notice that they sometimes fly near to the cage
to have a look in. They are aware that the creature in the cage is ‘sort of’
like them, and so they are often curious and want to establish some sort of
contact. The wild bird may even attempt some sort of communication, such as a
short whistle. But before long, the wild bird recognises that the caged bird
is trapped, depressed and partially insane. Therefore, any long drawn out
attempts at communication are probably pointless. His curiosity satisfied, the
wild bird catches the next breath of wind and heads off again into the ‘great
unknown’.