s- so simple it;s so hard to know what faith is !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

“since by the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified.” Later in his epistle to the Romans (Rom. 3:20)

(Ps. 143:2). No “flesh,” no human being from among finite humanity, is capable of generating or effecting righteousness, which is the character of God alone (Ps. 11:7; 119:137,142; I Jn. 2:29; 3:7). No performance of man will make one righteous either objectively or subjectively, forensically or vitally. Paul had tried his hardest to keep the Law in order to be righteous (Phil. 3:4-6), and had to agree with Isaiah (Isa. 64:6) that all such self-effort attempts were futile. The Law (whether in its general Judaic form, or in its more restricted Judaizing form) is “weak through the flesh” (Rom. 8:3), providing no dynamic of grace. It is proposition with no provision, regulation with no resource, document with no dynamic, letter with no life, expression with no energizing – incapable of being the basis of the behavioral expression of God’s righteousness; capable only of exposing man’s inability and his need to discover such in Jesus Christ. arrogance  of self is t aside fully in  grace by faith in Christ alone 

 

Chapter 4

What Went Wrong?

Living Organism to Lifeless Institution

 

Christ imparted to His followers, by word and deed, that in His kingdom there will be no hierarchy, neither power-plays nor titles. Instead, we are among sisters and brothers where sacrificial love and mutual foot-washing prevails.

 

Jesus demonstrated that He is building His ekklesia on earth. Christ told the disciples that when His resurrected body went back to the Father, He would continue His body life all over the earth. His reign increases in His kingdom in which all are brothers and sisters, and no one is “over” others.

 

But the annals of history reveal that something went wrong, dreadfully wrong! Before we get into some of the details, here’s a snapshot of a few key moments that give us insight as to how and when the way of Jesus was flagrantly cast aside.

 

**Around AD 150 Clement made a distinction between “priest” and “laity.” This set in motion the unbiblical divide of “clergy” and “laity,” the “ordained” and the non-ordained parishioners. Those “ordained” are “officially” invested with the priestly functions by titled offices. This was a new, human-based type of church order and authority.

 

**Around AD 250 the practice of “one-bishop rule” took root, and each bishop’s rule was defined territorially (see Judy Schindler, Part 2, Chapter 2).

 

**Around AD 325 the emperor Constantine created a new religion mixed with paganism, called it “Christianity,” and made it the official religion of the Roman Empire. From this point on, the civil rulers would have a heavy presence in what occurred in the visible church.

 

Thus, what was birthed as Christ our life, the Spirit-led wind of the ekklesias, morphed into a power-based, hierarchy-fed institution.

 

The expression of Christ through the Spirit functioned in a beautiful way in the early church. There was no "institution" in the beginning. The "institution" started taking shape from AD 150 onwards. As this institutional system unfolded, the Spirit of Christ became unnecessary, for the "institution" saw itself as the dispenser of grace. This is not to say there was no Spirit life anywhere, but it is to say that as the "institution" became more and more powerful, the Holy Spirit became less and less a part of the mix.

 

The Striking Features of the First Century Ekklesia

 

First century pagan religions and Judaism all had these basic characteristics: (1) specific experts who led the religious practices; (2) specific places (temples) where the people came to practice the religion; and (3) specific religious rituals that were carried out in designated ways and times.

 

It is precisely these three marks that were absent from the early church. They functioned with no “clergy” (all of the saints were “clergy,” the Lord’s “inheritance”), no religious buildings (they met “home to home”), and no set rituals (“each one of you has a song, a teaching, etc.”).

 

However, as was mentioned above, this simplicity was compromised in the Second and Third Centuries with the introduction of the leader/common people distinction, and the increasing focus on the “bishop” as the one to whom submission must be given.....

real stuff

 

Religion has to do with form, formalism and formulas;

ritual, rules, regulations and rites; legalism, laws and

laboring. The “good news” of Christianity is that it is not

what we do or perform, but what Jesus has done and is

doing in us. Jesus exclaimed from the cross, “It is

finished!” (John 19:30). The performance is hereby

accomplished! Jesus has done all the doing that needs

doing for our regeneration, and continues to do all the

doing that God wants to do in us.

 

 

The early Christians were not propagating a beliefsystem.

They were not dispensers of theological

information about God. They were not Book-bearers. They

were bearers of the Living Word, the Life, the Person, the

Power of Jesus, "who is the Spirit" (II Corinthians 3:18).

Lot has changed mystery of it;s magic was realized the amazing grace of the Christ vs usurps the blunder philosophy pagan forms

 

In comparison with the Light that they felt shining in their own souls, and the path of obedience which it required of them, the age-long disputes of Churchmen on points of doctrine seemed to them of no account. In 1650 Fox was taken before the magistrates at Derby for preaching in a "steeple house" after the regular preacher had closed his sermon, and he writes: "I told them all their preaching, baptism and sacrifices would never sanctify them; and bid them look unto Christ in them, and not unto men; for it is Christ that sanctifies. Then they ran into many words ; but I told them they were not to dispute of God and Christ, but to obey Him."³  This is characteristic and significant.

 

Some of them were men and women of little learning; others, on the contrary, were already preachers, and versed in the theology of the day. But they all agreed with Fox that Christianity was not a scheme of doctrine to be believed, but an experience to be entered into, and a life to be lived; and they tended, therefore, to regard Theology as a collection of "notions" of no importance, and possibly even a hindrance, to the religious life. Fox himself appears to have known nothing of Church history; both he and his friends, to whom the Son of Righteousness had arisen with healing in his wings, regarded the Christian centuries since the first as merely a "dark night of apostasy." 

 

 What have our

experts done for the Church except to push it into a rut, allowing

the letter of the law to dominate and control while denying

the power of the Holy Spirit? I fear that we may have

become too apologetic with our apologetics, and in trying to

please everyone we end up destroying the truth.

This has created a religious class system. All these learned

doctors with their PhDs and their noses firmly pointed north

have caused great strife in the Church of Jesus Christ. Don’t

they know that the devil is a better theologian than all of us

put together? The Scriptures tell us that the devil even trembles

before God, but he has no part in God’s kingdom:amen !!!!! tozar