​Hallmarks To Know Whether Jesus Considers “Our Church” To Be What He Had Called “MY Church”

Hallmarks To Know Whether Jesus Considers “Our Church” To Be What He Had Called “MY Church”

All of us know probably already how to read serious historical, scientific, autobiographical, or legal literature that is written by a good communicator: we assume that the author(s) thought about what were the best words available to put their thoughts into speech or writing, so that what would be created in the reader’s mind was the same as what had been in their minds.

Therefore, the only reason why a teaching, a promise, or a command that God had inspired to be written down is not acceptable to a person is because of a preexisting “prejudice”—a “predetermined judgment” against receiving in that normal literal sense what God had inspired, a prejudice that has been taught to you by some person or institution to whom you have allowed to have authority over you. The first time that most of us who have surrendered ourselves to God and been truly “born again” when we started reading the teaching of Jesus we assumed that they meant what the language He chose to use seems to mean—and we often got personally rattled because of that instinct!

It was our official “interpreters” who informed us that there was no need to be anxious, and who introduced us to the comforting method to be used when His commands seemed to require too much of us and His promises seemed “too good to be true” when we yield to that “immature” instinct to read Him as if He was very careful to speak exactly what was in His mind! [insert here a smiley indicating “tongue in cheek”!]

A promise might indeed seem “too good to be true” to be accepted “literally.” A command might seem to be impossible to be obeyed by us “mere mortals.” A teaching might seem to collide with what our Protestant or Catholic tradition may have taught us to interpret in a way that we have learned to accept, out of loyalty to that tradition. And then, we have to make the distressing choice: their word, or HIS!

After years of being trained in the skepticism of the “higher criticism” culture of several of the functionally unbelieving forms of “Christianity,” I was reconverted by God to interpret the New Testament teachings of Jesus and His Spirit-inspired apostles in that same way that we already treat man’s serious attempts to communicate:

• The words mean what they seem to be saying to someone with “no axes to grind”—ecclesiastical “axes,” in this case!
• The words mean what they seem to be saying to someone who trusts Him enough to receive those words like the “little child” that He has commanded us to become (Matthew 18:3).
• The words mean what they seem to be saying to someone who has become motivated by Him to obey what they seem to be saying, in the same way that He and His apostles modeled what they had commanded!

In this essay, I want to focus on some things that seem to me to be what in Geometry is called an “axiom”—things that are so fundamentally true and self-evident and so obvious that no proof is needed or even possible, An example of such an axiom would be, “The shortest distance between two points in a plane is a straight-line segment.” I want to focus on some things that seem to anyone with “no axes to grind” to be equally obviously true about the apostolic writings and the way that God organized and inspired His New Covenant people:

1. There is no indication within those apostolic writings that any teaching, promise, command, or structure described within them was supposed to ever be changed or set aside. In other words, what the Spirit inspired to be written New Testament was His “Users Guide” describing what He will always bring to pass as long as we were willing to let Him mold us in the way that He did His original disciples of Jesus! Therefore, all that follow in this list should be considered to be a hallmark of any congregation that wants to be acceptable to Him as an incarnation of what He called “MY church” (Matthew 16:18)!

2. Like all excellent communicators, Jesus only spoke allegorically when using allegories that were understood by the common people of His day to be allegories, things such as, “I am the good shepherd,” “I am the door,” “I am the bread of life.”

One of the most common ways that we who call ourselves “Christians” have divided ourselves from one another is in the differing ways that we claim that Jesus or His apostles could not have meant what their words seem to say, and therefore our differing denominations have provided some way of turning what His words grammatically seem to be saying into some form of allegory. Protestants, for example, generally insist that Jesus did not intend to be taken literally when He said of the bread and wine, ‘This IS my body… blood,’ and so they interpret ‘is’ to mean ‘is a symbol of.'” And virtually all of our post-Constantinian forms of Christianity insist upon taming His extremely clear but demanding command: ‘I tell you to not resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.’ The precise meaning and the consequences of that command—as it stands written—are too obvious and too full of literal “dying to self” possibilities for a people who no longer intend to run the risk of being crucified with their Savior by the world around them!

3. It is a New Testament “axiom” that it is logically impossible to “believe in Christ” or “accept Christ as Lord and Savior” unless you also “believe everything that came out of His mouth.” He never invited us to accept a “Savior” who is not also a Master to whom one has become willing to unconditionally surrender their belief and obedience. Consequently, yielding to the UN-allegorized way of life so clearly and explicitly taught in His Sermon on the Mount—such as “NOT resisting Him who is evil” and “whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two”—such obedience and trust cannot be separated from fruitfully “believing in Christ” and “accepting Christ as Lord and Savior’! His sacrificial death and His forgiveness cannot be disjoined from His teachings, His commands, and His promises! God’s covenants—neither Old nor New—allow for no provision of some “menu system” that allows for picking and choosing according to personal taste preferences!

4. Baptismal immersion was very important to Jesus: it was the defined event where a public confession of surrendering to his authority sealed your entranced into His covenant.
   1. “He who believes and is baptized will be saved”
   2. “Peter said to them: “Repent and be baptized, each one of you, upon the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). If Spirit-inspired words actually do mean what they seem to be saying, the importance of this baptismal immersion cannot be set aside!
   3. “… Baptism saves you” (1 Peter 3:21) – not the outer part, but the inextricably linked inner part is where His new covenant’s “salvation” promises are forged. But is that “inner part” made at our baptismal immersion that God Himself says “saves you”! We “sign” the covenant by openly confessing Him, and then descending/ascending out of the water that, as with Noah, both crucified us to this world and saved us from it.
   4. His baptismal immersion is the place where both man and God make their covenant pledges to each other—where we unconditionally surrender to become His obedient child and He vows to raise us up as one!
   5. It requires that the person being baptized is both willing and able to accept becoming His “disciple” Matthew 28:19 “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit …” We make disciples the way that He did: by His calling and their accepting: His invitation to allow “little children” be the ones who did the “coming” to Him has nothing to do with baptism newborn infants and applying to them what Peter had promised—at least, not unless you want to teach your people to abandon logical thinking!
   6. Unless you are some “Ethiopian eunuch,” our baptismal immersion brought them into the fellowship—and under the authority—of His holy apostles and elders.

5. From the ample evidence supplied by the Book of Acts, receiving His Holy Spirit was a distinct supernaturally empowering event that God poured out at a time of HIS choosing, an event that one could not help knowing where and when He had entered into them, as well as experiencing any consequential “gifts” resulting from His entrance! His “receiving,” “filling,” or “falling” was never assumed to have happened merely because of having believed in Jesus or having been baptized.
   1. The Holy Spirit specifically selected representative samples to describe within the Book of Acts about how and when His Pentecostal filling was experientially received. Those examples destroy any idea of a “formula” that assures that His reception “always” occurs at some specific decision or ecclesiastical action: Look in Acts 2:1ff, 8:4ff, 10:1ff, & 19:1ff. Even through there are norms, HE falls upon us, when He knows that WE are prepared! At Jesus called it a “baptism” because you know that you have just been immersed and filled by Him. In the only place where the Greek term “baptize” appears in the Old Testament it means “overwhelms” (Isaiah 21:4) which clearly seems to describe what the effect of that “Sprit immersion” in the Book of Acts produced among its recipients, does it not?
   2. Paul said, “I wish you all spoke with tongues, but even more that you prophesied” (1 Corinthians 14:5). If God inspired those apostolic writings to be normative for all times, then that “you” means “US,” does it not? And here is another “axiom”: What Paul wants, God wants!
6. Each congregation brought into being by the Spirit of God is a tightly knit survival unit, similar to a nuclear family. God’s version of “Pure and undefiled religion before God” (James 1:27) embraces much more than what most of our versions of Christianity have become! When communities are just worshipping and studying, how they organize themselves is not very important. But when they are surviving together, pooling resources, eliminating poverty from their midst, and making sure that “he who does not work, does not eat!” (2 Thessalonians 3:10)—when that is the case, structures, institutions and organization become quite important! And that is why we find such things well presented within the apostolic literature! God is as concerned for the functional integrity of His local communities as much as He was in the design and creation of our human bodies! And “pity the fool” who thinks that he can “improve” upon what the Creator of the life and laws of the universe designed and brought into being! That awareness, combined with how sloppily we have regarded it should provide ALL of us—whether Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, or Pentecostal—with plenty of cause to repent of our turning His “life giving water” into various versions of syrupy liquid that can taste pleasant but leave one in need of real invigorating “living water”
   1. Believers who are truly “Spirit-filled” will feel His desire to have “all things in common” (Acts 2:42-44)—“…that there may be equality” (2 Corinthians 8:13-15).
   2. This intense community existence was not required, If the “all” who had “all things in common required the elimination of all private property there would be no need to have exhortations for those who had abundant personal possessions! This would indicate that “all of them” who had “all things in common” meant that some “who had ears to hear” did abandon their private property, but others were free to have that “in common” attitude as a motivation to as much generosity as they were capable of institutionalizing.
      1. James 1:10, 1 John 3:17, Hebrews 10:34, Acts 5:1-4
   3. A apostolically-approved congregation is led by a team of Pentecostally anointed presbyters (“elders”/”overseers” (a.k.a. “bishops”) who rule decisively by coming to a common mind. They are aided by the “deacons” (Greek for “servants”), who are critically needed when a community is surviving life together, rather than merely being what men call “religion”!
      15. There is no such thing as a “democracy” in God’s Church—nor “autocracy.” The example of the principle by which God’s Spirit winds up being the ruler of God’s church is seen in that first “Apostolic Council” described in Acts 15. Pentecostally Spirit-filled apostles and Jerusalem church elders rule His people from “common mind,” which was identical to the decision of God Himself. There is no “one-man rule” principle in Kingdom of God leadership!
      16. The elders and teachers of what Jesus called “MY church” teach and discipline with the very authority of Christ Himself, in the same kind of authoritative leadership commanded for the father of a nuclear family. “Democracy” is a man-made illicit importation into His church. The apostolic congregation was a Pentecostally gift-centered movement with authoritative presbyter elders rule, but Spirit-filled prophet provide correction and guidance. The members had the right to vote into office those whom they trusted enough to allow to rule over them, and they functioned as permanent fathers, not officials being in place for a designated term of office!
   4. To someone with no “axes to grind,” John 6 is very clearly about the Eucharist, and is describing an introduction to one of the most important means by which all of His wonderful promises are fulfilled. To allegorize this into some other context about the kind of intense relationship that humans can have with one another is a grotesque twisting of what it literally screams out to us! Jesus’s union with those whom He loves is much deeper than the kind of relationships humans can have with one another!
      1. Jesus does explicitly connect His glorified presence with bread and wine: “This IS my body” (John 6)
      2. Paul confirms and expands its clarity: “The bread which we break, is IT [i.e., the bread] not the communion [“koinonia”/ ”partnering”/ “yoking”] of the body of Christ? For we, though many, are one bread and one body; because [Greek: “gar”/“γαρ”] we all partake of that one bread” (1 Corinthians 10:15). The raw grammar of that statement is demanding a “mysticism”-based reality that Catholics and Orthodox are taught, but that few Protestants know even exists in the heart of God! In the Spirit-inspired New Testament, becoming “partakers of the divine nature” is every bit as “real” as when our bodies become partaker of the food that becomes one with them! Not as physical, but every bit as real!
      3. Here are just a few of his mystical promises that are to be understood literally and personally experienced through His Eucharistic presence: “Christ IN you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives IN me” Galatians 2:20). “But if Christ is IN you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness” (Romans 8:10). “Jesus replied, ‘Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them’” (John 14:23) “And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I IN them” (John 17:26).
      4. That Holy Communion with Christ was experienced every Lord’s Day throughout all of Christian history, until most Protestants thought that its importance would be improved by less frequency and sadly turning His supernatural real presence into a pious memory! It turns out that the depth in which you regard His presence in the Eucharistic bread and wine (i.e. with “matter”) will very much influence your sense of His risen “spiritual body” presence to you personally and your awareness of whether His will willing to connect Himself to that which He has created (i.e., “matter”)! Developing His “eyes to see” leads to being able to see Him with those eyes!
   5. Christian females in relationship with males are created by God to be in a supportive relationship to their men:
      1. Women should pray to God or speak in His name when their heads are covered, “because of the ANGELS” (1 Corinthians 11:10)!
      2. The assembly is to be led by men, under the guidance of the elders who are led by the Spirit, but elders can certainly request specific women to speak in ways that do not present themselves as having authority over them – remember, I did not invent this kind of supportive relationship—God gave it to us through His apostles!
   6. Vowed celibacy is highly encouraged by Jesus, and Paul even teaches that “… the one who marries his own virgin does well, but the one who does not, does better” (1 Corinthians 7:38). The celibate vow and lifestyle must therefore also be encouraged and institutionalized by His church, or else we are deliberately ignoring what God has exalted! 1 Timothy 5:9-12 clearly describes how widows are to make a formal vow of celibacy, and that violation of such a vow amounts to some very serious negative judgment from God! I am definitely not being biased toward those sacramental churches, that invented the “state church” corruptions that have plagued Christianity ever since Emperor Constantine’s friendly seduction became embedded within their instincts and constitutions! But to be faithful to the God who is our Creator and our coming Judge, He will demand that we love all that He loves and commands with childlike simplicity!

That list certainly does not include all that characterizes what our declared Master Jesus wants in His congregations. But what is in that list are what even a professional secular sociologist would likely find to be a fair description of what the Spirit of God caused the apostles of Jesus to create as versions of what He had called “MY church.” And they provide enough to drive all of us with tender consciences to fall on our faces in shame and sorrow for what we have allowed Satan to remove from what used to be ingrained within us!

I do not know of a single congregation or denomination in all of contemporary Christendom that has embraced all of those above ten descriptions even as an ideal or stated goal, let alone functionally institutionalized among them. And those who have institutionalized some of them take great public pleasure in announcing that they do!

Yet, here is the miracle!—Despite what can be seen—or not seen—in our congregations, God has nevertheless restored them all, scattering them around various denominations and movements. Perhaps He has done that scattering as an incentive for us to begin to hate our disunity with as much passion as Jesus obvious demonstrated in loving the harmonious unity that he so passionately prayed for in John 17! The message from such scattering would be something like, “You will only become what I called “MY church” when you take my prayer seriously!”

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