History of the Church vs. History of God
History of the Church vs. History of God
The history of the church is different than the History of God. Man tries to shove God into this little box called the church. Of course, that is only a thing common to man, because God cannot be tamed. He cannot be confined, but man’s attempts to do so are borne from several things. One is simply trying to understand God, which will never be possible here or in the next life. 1 Corinthians 13:12 notwithstanding.
Man, also seems to think He can control God by and through his institutions; if he, man, can institutionalize, organize or otherwise codify God then there is some modicum of control in his perception demanded by the recognition that there is a power greater than himself.
And of course, the age-old power struggle of those in power trying to control others. That is, the leaders trying to control the people, or how the communists put it – the proletariat.
This is probably why the recovery systems have as one of their first three main principles “realize that I am not God…” It is interesting to me that we use
1 Corinthians 10:13
“No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.”…
With the word temptation being the object here speaking about greed, lust, all manners of untruthfulness, unfaithfulness and rebellion against God’s commandments. But the biggest temptation of all is to place ourselves above God – or, at least at the same level of power and control in regard to life.
This is not intended to be a treatise on recovery principles, but it is no accident that the first three steps are:
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
The first step is simply to establish ourselves as imperfect and as such, recognize that we have let something outside of ourselves be in control of our lives. And this step must be antecedent to whatever comes next or nothing will change what brought someone to the “rooms” in the first place. The old saying of “If nothing changes, then nothing changes” is beyond a simple aphorism.
The second step is where the work begins. 2a is what we are concerned with here. There is a power greater than our “selves”, us. Man has always wanted to be in charge and starting with ourself is merely a prelude to ultimately controlling everything else, including God. 2b, by the way, “restoring us to sanity” is self-evident to those walking through those doors.
The third step is the surrender step. While surrender is often associated with weakness, in God’s idea of surrendering He rightly and smartly makes it clear that the individual is control of one thing – the decision to do so. God set it up so that He cannot – or at least will not – renege on His idea in creating man with free will. Therefore, surrendering is a courageous step and requires a personal strength rather than a weak response to being overpowered.
So, while that might have seemed like the proverbial “bunny trail”, let’s bring this back to the original idea:
The history of the church is different than the History of God. Man tries to shove God into this little box called the church, of course, that is only a thing common to man because God cannot be tamed.
There is irony here. God wants to have a relationship with his creation, and He clearly desires to have that relationship with the macro “creation”, but most intimately in the micro, each person. This, in my opinion, is the set-up for the above statement.
What I am not saying is that we should not have church, church is essential for emotional and spiritual health. And one could make an argument for every other type of “health”, as well. I have said this often and believe that we are not human beings in possession of a spirit, rather we are Spiritual beings in possession of a body. (Yes, I realize this is extremely Platonic, but it is my perception).
We need to meet together.
Hebrews 10:24 – 25:
"24And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.25not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching."
There is more but the point is made. And, as for salvation, it is not the church that is saved, it is the individual. I have never heard a pastor during the Altar Call say let us agree as a church that we accept the atoning work on the cross of Jesus and thus be saved as a group. No, we know it is when we pray the prayer – talking to God, each one – that salvation occurs when a new believer actually confesses with their mouth that Jesus is Lord and believes in their hearts that God raised Him from the dead they will be saved to the next life.
Here’s the problem, when we get together, we have a tendency to conspire. No revolution ever started with one person walking around with a placard on a stick protesting some behavior, or complaining about some policy they felt was unfair. But get two people together, and soon it can become 4, then 8, then … you get the idea. Pretty soon there is an organization, and of course then there are leaders, and followers, and tag-a-longs, and others that are talking about them at family gatherings, by the water cooler, at the tailgate party. etc... and this occurs not long after you have a church of some kind. I have even heard of the Church of Tiger Woods.
The New Testament Greek word translated as "church" is ekklesia, which means an assembly or "called out" ones and while generally associated with the Christian church, the word can actually be used in context of any group of called out ones for any “cause” that is common to that group. I say this to make the point; we tend to conspire when we meet together. Conspire is not necessarily meant to be used in a negative context, we just know that there is power in numbers. It is this conspiratorial nature of man when meeting in groups that facilitated the crusades, the Third Reich, and the Muslim Brotherhood. It is also this conspiratorial nature that gave us denominations within the Christian faith. Personally, the denomination thing, while I respect the power in them, was so off putting to me when I was in seminary that I was ordained as a Non-denominational Pastor.
Regardless, as soon as Christ ascended, the only manner in which man knew how to react was to form groups. Granted, albeit house churches, which were probably the purest form of religious gathering ever, but persecution demanded a more formal layer of organization. And here we go. Now Peter, who indeed Christ personally ordained, Matthew 16:18:
“And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.”
Christ knew what we would do, we would build a church when He left the earth and returned to the right hand of God at the Throne. It is in the nature of man to band together. The problem is that we build things that look like us. The personality of any church, any faith system, any denomination can be seen in its operations. And while it may resemble the founders’ ideas and personalities in the beginning, eventually it take on more and more of the subsequent leaders personality through time.
I have noticed that we struggle to bring the Creator’s personality in His purest form to our churches. There is “this doctrine” and “that doctrine”, “this dogma” and “that dogma”, “this orthodoxy” and “that orthodoxy”. We talk about the essentials; belief, love, forgiveness, surrender, prayer and obedience. But there is often a strain isn’t there? I think it has to do with the obedience thing, along with the withholding of love and forgiveness if you don’t obey the tenets of the faith. Rather than find out why bad behaviors are happening in any one person, we seem to always have in mind consequences, above the emotional or spiritual pain of the perpetrator and how they got to be a “perpetrator” in the first place. That is church history.
God’s history, if you believe that Jesus is His Son, came to earth to die on a cross for our sins, (and I am one of those), is that of forgiveness. A contrite heart is a big requirement, because without that we go back to step 1 in the recovery principles again. God’s history is John 3:16, Matthew 22:37, and Psalm 139. Yes, there are consequences of sin, but… “what can wash away my sin, nothing but the blood of Jesus”. This is what overcomes it all. It either does or it doesn’t. What is the emphasis here? God’s history is replete with forgiveness. From Jacob and his arrogance, David and his Bathsheba, to Thomas and his doubts.
Church history on the other hand is replete with condemnations, violence, unchecked sexual lust, and lording itself over the congregation. Oh sure, there has been a lot of good done for the poor unfortunates of this world, as it should be, otherwise there would be no reflection of our God. Unfortunately, the church is just as hypocritical as the individuals that make up the body.
I realize that is a pretty cynical view and negative portrayal, and I’m sorry for both my description and for the fact of its accuracy. But take heart, refer above to God’s history, all is not lost. God is much bigger than His church.
