Previous articles can be read here:
THE
BRIDE YOU CAN KISS – Part 1
THE
BRIDE YOU CAN KISS – Part 2
THE
BRIDE YOU CAN KISS – Part 3
THE
BRIDE YOU CAN KISS – Part 4
Eκκλησία (ekklēsia) is the Greek word translated ‘Church’
in the New Testament. In the New Testament it was a gathering of citizens
called out of sin and darkness; and called out from their private, individual
lives into gatherings found in a home and eventually into some public place, an
assembly. Since it was an outward, visible assembly it could only be local.
I have argued that the New Testament primarily refers to the
Church as local and visible. I showed
that it is described in Revelation 1:12ff as autonomous under the Lordship of
Christ. In Part 1 I described a conversation:
“So my brother, you have been attending this Church, for
some time. Have you considered membership,” I ask. “No, I
actually find it unnecessary,” he responds. Continuing, he states,
“When I became a Christian I became part of the universal Body of
Christ. Joining a Church is redundant and unnecessary; besides
institutional churches are just man-made organizations.”
This Doctrine of the Local, Visible Church demands certain
implications. From the conversation
above, the first is obvious.
Implication #1.
It is foreign to the New Testament and inconsistent to profess faith in Christ
and not become a member of a local Church.
It is illogical to claim membership solely in what is scattered and
unseen wherein Christ has determined that the local Church makes visible what
is indistinguishable.
To those who remain within the numinous unobserved domain of
Christendom and not join the local church, the question is laid before you, “Which
pastor is charged with the watch-keep over your soul; and which pastor do you
grant your respect and obedience (Hebrews 13:17)?” We could add, “To which body of believers
will you show your mutual love and care for?”
Or do you find it more pleasing to float between these embassies of
heaven and pick and choose what you want, discarding what you don’t want.
And if one is unconvinced of the Biblical necessity to
become a member of a local Church, then to which Church will you seek to affirm
your profession of faith and in obedience to our Lord baptize you? And to
which local Church will you partake of the Lord’s Table, confessing your
oneness with that Body and yet refuse to commit to it through membership?
Implication #2. As we have affirmed the Truth that local,
visible Bodies of Christ, called the Church are ordained and sovereignly ruled
by our risen Saviour. And as one readily
sees that Pastors, elders and deacons are delegated responsibility to care and
watch over these individual outposts of Heaven, we then must readily assume,
not only that each Church is independent and self-governing under Christ, but
that each assembly will differ in emphasis and matters of conscience.
Certainly cardinal matters of doctrine and faith will be the
same no matter the locale of the Church, if it’s a true Church. In lower tier areas will differ. This brings me to the specifics of this
implication, which is: it ought to be a very serious contravention of a major
doctrine that would cause a Church member to break fellowship with their local
Church. To break fellowship over superficial
or disputable matters fails to comprehend the uniqueness and the value of the
local Church. When Paul calls Christians
to remain loyal, welcoming and in fellowship with other believers who differ on
disputable matters, certainly the same must be true of the Church body (Romans
14).
In years past Ruth’s statement to her mother-in-law was
often quoted at weddings. “But
Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For
where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be
my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be
buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me
from you.”” (Ruth
1:16–17, ESV). Would it be that
Christians would express the same loyalty to one another in the Church?
These two implications can be summarized in two words: loyal
partnership.
“An examination of the 118 uses of the word ekklesia in the
New Testament scriptures shows they refer directly to a local, visible
assembly, ie., a group of people coming together to carry out the Lord's work
in a specific location in Ephesus, Colossi, Philippi, or meeting in a house
such as Philemon. Only Matthew 16:18 refers to the generic or institutional
sense of the church all others refer to or were written to a local assembly.”
There’s a somewhat super spirituality and feigned piety to
those who show contempt toward the local church in favour of the “true,
invisible, universal” Church. God created the world including mankind to show
forth His unseen glory and make it visible, to be seen and rejoiced in. The invisible God would, in the progress of
time, become visible in the Person of Jesus Christ. In the Person of Christ, God dwelt in all
fullness, bodily. God ordained that the
universal, invisible Church become visible that in Ephesus, Colossi, and your
community and mine, a visible Church might show forth His glory through the
Lordship of Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
It is a Bride, you can kiss.
It is real, tangible and observable. The Groom’s goal is to “present the church to himself in
splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and
without blemish.”[2]
