I really don't care to describe it in much detail, because there are some here, evidently who would not want to understand. I would make the point the the True and Living God does move in those places yet today. But you know that; I don't have to convince you.
When does it break out? When God's people have been walking with God before they arrive there. There is no “worship switch” inside the door that the believers can flip on to get an emotional buzz (which may be what some here think we must be talking about). It is a working of the Holy Ghost in the midst of His people who already love and obey the truth, and have made themselves vulnerable to His will and moving in their personal daily concourse with God.
The Holy Spirit is a Real Person — not an idol — not a ritual — not a liturgy — not an “order of service” like some menu from which we order one from column A and two from column B. When HE moves in and acts among the regenerated, He usually disrupts and interrupts everything man has tried to arrange, and for the good of God's children. The Christians who usually get to be blessed by such an atmosphere are those who don't need to follow something printed in the bulletin. They are those who have learned to be still and wait on God.
The results are an often seeing of the lost come to Christ, Christians being genuinely revived for service, the backslidden repenting, and people being called into the ministry. And always the Lord Jesus Christ having the preeminence.
You know that the New Testament teaches that the Holy Ghost Himself could be said to be emotional. He is sensitive; touchy. He can be grieved and quenched. I would say that He is grieved and quenched in the majority of modern churches.
I've not said anything here that you are unfamiliar with, evidently. Others are just wagging their noggins and wondering what is in the next printing of their church missal.
THE CHURCH WHICH IS HIS BODY;
THE FULLNESS OF HIM
Ephesians 1:23; Colossians 1:18, 19
Could any pastor of any local church stand and say the following?: “The church which I pastor is ‘the fullness of Christ.’” We know of only a handful of churches (no more than that, though there are probably more) which are what may be described as “Philadelphian churches in the Laodicean age.” Not one of their pastors would have the gall or intrepidity to declare that the church that he pastors is “the fullness of Christ.” No single local church in history has ever been “the fullness of Christ.” What nonsense it is, then, to declare that the Body of Christ is nothing more than local churches in perpetuity and succession!
The Body of Christ is “the fullness of him that filleth all in all.” (Eph. 1:22, 23). The Body of Christ is the literal, though spiritual, unity in Christ, which no local church could foster, influence, diminish or imitate, even though typification would be the goal of any local assemblies which understand the purposes of God. This Church was founded, yeah, created by the operation of God (Colossians chapter 2), not by organizational meetings, ordinations performed by man (e.g. carnal ordinances, Colossians chapter 2), charters, constitutions, by-laws, registrations with civil authorities, or any other acts of sinners.
There is one, and only one, Church in existence by which the manifold wisdom of God is made known to “the principalities and powers in heavenly places.” (Ephesians 3:9, 10) The God and Father of our Lord and Savior says, in effect, to those principalities and powers, “Do you want to know my manifold wisdom? Then take a good look at My Son’s Church. It was hid in Me from the time I created you (see 1 Corinthians 2:4-9), but now my intent is to show it to you, so that you can see what true Wisdom is all about. It involves a perfect and complete union between the sinner and his Savior—a union based on an eternal partnership between the Everlasting Father and His Son. It is a partnership in which the sinner is not a principle, but a beneficiary by Grace. This wise union, purchased by Righteous Blood, which satisfies My Holiness and Justice, cannot be forfeited by the sinner, as the responsibility for its maintenance has never been his. Satan, you can see now that you have no power to destroy this union, nor do any of your principalities and powers.” Read Ephesians 3:9, 10 carefully and prayerfully. Could you say that God is pointing to your local church as the epitome of His Wisdom for exhibition to the principalities and powers in heavenly places? Would you be so foolish? No godly and humble pastor or Scripture-wise local church member would ever make such a claim.
In earth time, the Father gave Christ to be the head over all things to this Church at the resurrection and ascension (Ephesians 1:20-23), not during His earthly ministry. This Church could not have been revealed while as yet God was giving Israel a bona fide opportunity to receive her King, Messiah, and Savior (the subject of the Gospels). Though God may have begun placing members into Christ’s Body as early as the day of Pentecost (if so, we are not told this in Acts chapter 2, or anywhere else), this Church was not revealed until after the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, who became the Apostle Paul (Ephesians 3:1-12; Romans 16:25,26).
The Body of Christ receives members by a baptism performed by the Holy Spirit of God (1 Corinthians 12:13; Romans 6:3-7; Galatians 3:27; Ephesians 4:5; Colossians 2:9-13), not by man. The recipients of this baptism are all those who have trusted Christ, after they have heard the word of truth, the gospel of their salvation, and are sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise (see Ephesians 1:13). There is no water involved in this baptism. The Spirit immerses us into Christ’s Sufferings (Romans 6:1-10; Galatians 2:20) and into Christ Himself, and leaves us there, yeah, seals us there! The reason for such a glorious position is the satisfaction that the Father has taken in the perfect Work of His own Son, “wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.” (Ephesians 1:6; Isaiah 53:11; 1 John 2:2; Romans 3:25). We are not accepted on the basis of any earthly qualifications: water baptism or communion of bread and wine, local church membership, or by any other association or act.
The Body of Christ is the “one body” of Ephesians 4:4, absolutely necessary for the context, which is “keeping the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (4:3). All of the visible local churches through the Church Age, if ever assembled in one place on earth before their saved members are given new bodies, could not keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. This is something that is Spirit and not flesh (much like John 4:24—”God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”). Now, I am going to give here one qualification to the statement that I just made. In Acts chapters 2 and 3 you see a local assembly of believers. If God began to form the Body of Christ at Pentecost, then in those chapters, all of the members of the Body of Christ were together in one earthly assembly; in one earthly church in one city. That was the only time that it could be said that the Body of Christ and the local church were the same. But by the time the Apostle Paul was sent away from Antioch (Acts chapter 13) to undertake his ministry westward among the Gentiles, the Body of Christ remained one Body, while its members on earth were physically dispersed among many local assemblies.
This “one body” has only “one Spirit” that calls us in “one hope and calling” (Ephesians 4:4). No single local church with many spirits of sinners competing and rivaling could accomplish this. This “one body” has “one Lord,” and “one faith.” Local churches, even if they all claim to be Baptists (or by any other name given by men among men), do not genuinely have “one faith” beyond certain points of dogma laid down by historical confessions, or by men of particular persuasions. Local churches have divergent beliefs, creeds, views and methods.
This “one body” has only “one baptism” (Ephesians 4:5) Water baptism is only one of at least seven (and up to eleven) baptisms introduced in Scripture. The context, again, is that one baptism which is necessary to put a sinner into Christ, and keep the unity of the Spirit, not the unity of the local churches, or of denominations, or of any Baptist fellowship, or of any missions endeavor, or between a “mother church” and her “daughters,” or anything else. Therefore water is nowhere in this picture.
This “one body” has only “one hope of [her] calling,” which is found in Philippians 3:12-21 and Titus 2:13. This hope is the “high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” No person in Christ needs to doubt that God will include him or her when Christ calls His Body on high to meet Himself, the Head. It does not depend on your standing with any earthly assembly. Neither does it depend on whether the local church of which you are a member can prove any line of succession back through history to the Apostles (No local church can prove any such line!). There will be no Baptist rapture! [Study further in this booklet as to the certain importance of the earthly assembly.]
The Body of Christ is the Church in which every soul is regenerated. All members are saved. The fact that it is called “the whole family in heaven and earth” (Ephesians 3:15) reveals that every single member of it is a child of God (cp. 1 John 3:1). Membership in no local church can determine sonship with God! A local church can operate with a large percentage of lost members (and most of them do!), especially in our day! Some will say that what I am describing is only called the “family of God.” All right then, please find all of the Bible cross-references, and teach us what you believe the family of God is! If you stay in the word of God for your authority, rather than regress to Baptist “handbooks” (like those from Ashland Avenue Baptist Church, Ashland, Kentucky), you will discover the Body of Christ. The only reference you will find is: “Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,…” (Ephesians 3:15). Read the context! The context describes the sonship status of the members of the Church which is Christ’s Body (vv. 3-12). Some members of Christ’s Body are presently “[in] earth,” while some now “sleep in Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 4:14), and their soul and spirit are awaiting the time when we all shall be glorified together. All in this age who are “justified by faith” share this same “hope of the glory of God.” (Romans 5:1-5; 8:18,19; etc.).
The Body of Christ is the one and only Church in which “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). Although there ought to be a testimony of a sweet oneness in the local assembly, membership therein does not produce the characteristic “one in Christ Jesus.” “One in Christ Jesus” and “one in the fellowship of the local church” are not synonymous concepts (although the former sure enhances the latter!). In local assemblies there could be Jews in fellowship with Gentiles. Servants and masters could worship side-by-side. Men and women enjoy the preaching of the Word of God together. In Christ, however, Jews are not with Greeks. In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek. In Christ servants are not sitting alongside their masters. In Christ there is neither bond nor free. In Christ men are not seated with their wives. In Christ there is neither male nor female. Please see further distinction made in the discussion of women in the local assembly, later on in this work.
Spiritual and Literal At the Same Time
The failure, by many, to see that in Scripture spiritual things can also be literal things will prevent many from fully understanding the phrase “in Christ.” If this problem plagues you, you might start with studying God Himself. “God is a Spirit:...” (John 4:24). He never was permanently a physical Being until He was conceived in the womb of a virgin by the creative power of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 2:18; Luke 2:31, 35). We declare that God was a literal and real Being before that physical conception. Then study the angels. God “maketh his angels spirits...” (Hebrews 1:7). Are they any less literal because they are spiritual? No. So it is with the Body of Christ. This Church, though spiritual, is literal nonetheless. The Protestant Reformers often referred to the Body as the “mystic Body.” You will notice this especially in the hymnology of their day. They took the word “mystic” from Paul’s teachings on the “mystery.” We choose not to use the word “mystic,” but instead, “spiritual.”
Belief in the Body of Christ as a spiritual entity does in no way lessen our respect for the local assembly. To the contrary, this understanding makes us seek a more spiritual nature for the local church; such a spiritual nature that is all too rare in the opening days of the Twenty-first Century.
The members of the Body of Christ, saved thus far, are already assembled. We believers are “in Christ.” We are placed or assembled in one body by the Holy Spirit “fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth...” (Ephesians 4:16). We are already sitting “together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6). Our lives “are hid with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3). The members of this Church are “members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones” (Ephesians 5:30). The act of joining a local church could never make a believer a member of Christ’s flesh and of Christ’s bones. But this collective union is described in Ephesians 5 precisely as “the church” (v. 32); the glorious church which He will present to Himself, “not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing;...” (v. 27). No local church could ever be described this way. No local church or conglomerate of earthly churches will ever be presented to Christ in such a fashion.
The Body of Christ will know even as we are known (1 Corinthians 13:12), and be completed, when it’s Head descends and we go to receive “the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus....Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself.” (Philippians 3:14, 21). This is our “blessed hope” (Titus 2:13). The local church has no such hope, for local churches, as churches, won’t get “raptured.” There is no “high calling” for any one or for any collective grouping of local assemblies. Only Christ’s Body will be translated. “Them that sleep in Jesus” and “we which are alive and remain” (1 Thessalonians chapter 4) are words and expressions that indicate they will be individual members of Christ who will be raptured, and not organized earthly churches. All who are “in Christ” will meet him in the air regardless of their affiliation with any local earthly body when Christ comes forth to gather His Body out. Saved, regenerated Baptists, Anabaptists, Moravians, Presbyterians, Bible Church members, Christian Church members, Brethren, Plymouth Brethren, Grace Brethren, Russian, Chinese or Vietnamese underground (un-named) house church members, others we know nothing about as yet, or those unaffiliated with any earthly body whatsoever, but who are “in Christ,” will go out and up. There will not be one moment of hesitation on our Lord’s part to take all who are in Him!
The Body of Christ has no earthly head, only One heavenly Head. Christ’s Body has no single earthly pastor, but only one Bishop of our souls (1 Peter 2:25). This Church has no one, single meeting place given to it on earth, but is assembled “in Christ” in heavenly places, and will meet together in the air one glad day coming very soon. The Lord’s Church exercises no earthly ordinances, and such ordinances do not determine standing in this Body in the least. Knowing that Christ’s Body has no earthly head, no single pastor, no single meeting place, or sacramental ordinances, separates us from belonging to the unscriptural ecumenical “Universal Church” crowd. True Bible doctrine emphasizes separation (2 Corinthians 6:14-18): ….
from the wandering, non-principled religious professors of Christendom, who mingle with the antichrists, with the world, its system, its fashions, its music, and …
from those who believe that “love” is the foundation, exclusive of sound doctrine (see 1 Timothy 1:5, 6).
In other words, there are no organizations, conferences, denominations, orders, meetings, events, media (e.g. radio, television, taped, etc) programs, or para-church associations or fellowships that exemplify true and sound unity in Christ. If the sound application of the principles of the unity of Christ’s Body cannot be made within regularly functioning and scripturally-disciplined local assemblies, then I find no other means of application while living on this earth.
That last paragraph was a segue to the discussion of churches that do have biblically regulated earthly offices, ordinances, and meeting places. The last usage of the word “church” designates......
INDEED!