Part 3 - Chart - Comparing Institutuion vs Organism
| This Article is part of a multi-part Study Series called Our Organic Union with the Lord - a 3-Part Series. |
Here in Part 3 I conclude our study of the “Organic Union Believers Have with The Lord” who indwells their spirit.
Organic human life is such that it functions automatically and spontaneously per the instructions received from ‘the head of the body.’ In the case of “the church, which is His body” (Eph. 1:9-10), it also is governed by Christ as the living “head of the body.” “And he (Christ) is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.” (Colossians 1:18).
Since “Christ is the head of the body” we might ask, why does He need any human clerical hierarchy as His mediators to rule His body members. The answer is that Christ does not need men to rule “His body.” Men rule a so-called church as an institution and organization. This manmade system of rule we see as we see from early times to today ignores the living organic nature of the real church, which is His living body on earth today. Jesus Himself hates the Clergy Laity System as He states in Revelation 2:6, 15, referring to that evil system as “the deeds (work) of the Nicolaitans” (See below for explanation.).
I place a chart below to compare elements of the pattern of the manmade church’s institutional organization with those of the genuine living organic “Church, which is the body of Christ.”
Part 3 - Compare the ‘Institutional Church’ with the Organic “Church… which is the body of Christ”
The Institutional Pattern Called Church: | The Organic Pattern of The Church: |
1. is sustained by a ‘clergy system’ – This is the *Nicolaitanism that ‘Jesus hates’ (Rev. 2:6, 15) 2. the clergy seeks to energize the laity 3. limits many functions to the ordained only 4. renders the bulk of the congregants are passive, in their pews. 5. associates ‘church’ with a building, denomination or a religious service 6. is rooted in being unified on the basis of a set of customs, tradition, or doctrines 7. ordinary Christians are limited to their pews
8. places priority on programs, rituals, liturgy, rites, that keep its congregants at arm’s length with God and insulating them from one another
9. depends on forced tithing and large budget to support the organization’s ministries 10. spends most of its resource on building expenditures and pastor-staff salaries
11. operates in the basis that a pastor/priest as the functional head, while Christ is the nominal (minor) head of the local church
12. extols and protects the clergy-dominated, program-centered systems that serves as the driving machine of the organized church 13. recognizes and affirms the hierarchical leadership
14. builds programs to fuel the church and treats the members as cogs in a machine 15. encourages believers to participate institutionally and hierarchically 16. separates the church (ecclesiology) from one’s personal salvation (soteriology), viewing the latter as a mere appendage to the church | 1. knows nothing of a clergy system 2. does not recognize a separate class called laity 3. makes all members of a functioning body 4. allows and encourages all Christians to engage in whatever work God has called them to. 5. affirms that people do not go to church, because they are the church. 6. is rooted in the open fellowship of all believers on the basis of faith in Christ alone 7. liberates all believers to serve as non-clerical ministers in a decentralized form of church 8. places its priority on face to face, shared life relationships, mutual submission, openness, freedom, mutual service, and spiritual reality as the living members of the ‘body of Christ’
9. depends upon the Spirit of God to bring about generous, grace-based giving 10. spends most of its resources on “the poor among you” and the traveling workers who preach the gospel building up “His Church.” 11. operates on the basis that Christ is the functional “head” of “the body of Christ,” through the invisible guidance of the Holy Spirit in the believing community. 12. rejects the clergy system because it quenches the sovereign exercise of the Holy Spirit… while loving and embracing every member equally 13. rejects the hierarchical and mediatorial leadership, recognizing and affirming the organic leadership of the whole body of Christ
14. builds up His body members together ‘in Christ’ to provide the momentum of the church 15. invites believers to participate relationally and spiritually 16. forges no link between personal salvation and the church; sees the two inseparably intertwined. When people are saved they simultaneously become part of “the church… the body of Christ.” |
*Meaning of word ‘Nicolaitans’ – This refers to ‘conquerors of the common people’ (Nickos = the Clergy / Laitans = the Laity).
The real world meaning of ‘Nicolaitans’ in its native tongue and in its ecclesiastical setting, is that the Clergy, the Bishops and Prelates of the Church, have gained a triumphal victory over “Laiton,” meaning ‘the ‘laity,’ until the laity has been compelled to submit to the arbitrary dominion of men who have become that which God hates, as “lords over God’s heritage.”
The “word of God” says Jesus “hates” (Rev. 2:6. 15) the work of the Nicolaitan clergy/laity system in which the common believers are dominated by an elite set of hierarchal mediatorial leaders, because it is contrary to the truth that “in Christ” are all equal and one.