For there
is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus
1 Timothy 2:5
In this final installment of the Reformation
Redux I hope to bring you to the realization of the simple yet profound concept
of ‘Christ the only mediator between God and Man’. On its surface it may seem as though this
need not be said in Christendom since it is so obvious, but it is
only when we examine our beliefs in the light of God’s word (and not the other
way around) can we see the need for this concept to return to the body.
By understanding the last installment
we can see an obstacle to our direct connection to God in the activities of the
clergy. Through its system many who
occupy these positions have wittingly or unwittingly set themselves as hindrances
to the desire of God in the earth. It is
this system that supplants the will of God for his called out ones. Through the clergy system we have introduced
a type of bureaucratic layer that we must go through to catch a glimpse of
God. Even when we perceive him it is
only through a special lens provided by the clergy that determines what our
relationship with God should be like.
This should not be so. In this
section you will come to see how what we call church now stands as the primary
agent of hindrance to your relationship with God.
Church bureaucracy
At the inception of the body of
Christ and up until the death of the apostles the concept of church bureaucracy
would have been an oxymoron to those who had walked and talked with Jesus. They knew first hand his requirement and they
came to understand what it was that he required of us as his body. Bureaucracy is antagonistic to the body
concept and stifles its growth. Before
we go further let us define this term:
Administration of a government chiefly through bureaus or departments
staffed with non-elected officials; Management or administration marked by hierarchical
authority among numerous offices and by fixed procedures.
This succinctly describes the
concept of bureaucracy; by its very definition we can see how it directly obstructs
our relationship with the Father.
The idea of the clergy arose from a
desire among carnal-minded men who saw it as their duty to impose
order in a particular structure – in the case the body of Christ. They started with good intentions supposing
that it would enhance the experience of Christianity. What happened though was that the order they
tried to impose was counterproductive to what God had designed. It was borrowed from the political systems of
the day – mainly the Roman political structure that was Christianized and adopted
by the church. By doing this they
introduced a foreign element into the purity of God’s structure and it has caused
problems ever since.
The clergy sought to be all things
religious to the believers. By inserting
themselves into the pure equation of
God ║
Jesus ║ Man
…, we now have the concoction
God ║
Jesus ║ Clergy ║ Man
This foreign entity by its very
presence encumbers the development of the relationship between the man and his God. The clergy introduces a level of bureaucracy that
must be passed in order to reach God. Lest you think this only occurs in the
Catholic Church consider your own protestant actions when you find yourself in
some spiritual or physical problem. More
often than not we run to the ‘House of God’ to seek out the ‘Man of God’ for
his ‘Special Anointing’. This is an
impediment!
Church Leadership
Most people cannot see the hindrance
that the clergy system places on their relationship with God because they
assume that it is God’s plan and that it is the best system available. Many would tout scripture after scripture
proclaiming the authenticity of the ‘offices’ in the church today. We need leaders they say, how else will we
settle disputes or be rebuked when we go astray. I say to you leadership as a concept is not
the problem; the problem is our understanding of what is the leadership that God
demands. Consider the words of Jesus:
But Jesus called them unto
him, and said, ye know that the rulers
of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over
them. Not so shall
it be among you: but whosoever would become
great among you shall be your minister;
and whosoever would be first among you shall be your servant: even as the Son of man came not to be ministered
unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. Matthew 20:25-28
Do you understand how far we have
fallen with our concept of leadership compared with Jesus’? When we think of church leadership we think of
a single individual or some small group of individuals wielding power over a larger
group. This is by far one of the most
ungodly concepts as far as the church is concerned. Look at what Jesus describes as
leadership. First he tells you what it is
NOT:
Ye know
that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones
exercise authority over them.
From this initial statement on
leadership we now understand that the systems of the world in regards to
leadership were unacceptable to God. What
made this unacceptable was that the people who led did so by controlling the
lives of those they led. Not only that,
the system of the Gentiles was similar to a pyramid with the leader on top
being supported by the underlings. Does
this sound familiar? Of course it does
you see it in almost every church you go.
A single individual and his team determine:
1 - What songs you
sing and when you sing,
2 - When to stand
when to sit
3 – When to shout
hallelujah
4 - They tell you
when you should pray; in fact they even tell you in what manner to pray
5 - They tell you
when to give and how much to give
6 - They determine
when we meet together, and they determine the tenor of those meetings.
What may I ask is the difference
between what we call leadership in the church and the leadership Jesus speaks
out against? Just for contemplation, who
is Lord in the services you attend; we would blurt out without hesitation “the
Spirit of the Lord, of course”. We
assume this because we presume that the pastor has some special way to connect
to God, and therefore he is more in tuned with God and so the Spirit of God must
be at work. Do not fool yourselves!
Jesus goes on to tell us what type
of leadership he expects in his body:
…but
whosoever would become great among you shall be your minister; and whosoever
would be first among you shall be your servant:
The above version pretties up the idea
of what Jesus is saying by using the word minister and servant, but what is the
exact word used here to describe leadership.
Vines Complete Expository Dictionary
describes the word servant as ‘a person doing servile work or an
attendant rendering free
service’. Now there is just no way of
getting around this, Jesus says those who want to lead should not seek to be
served but to serve. What qualifies as
service? Jesus qualifies it as Servile or Free work. Well now if Jesus had to say to the leaders of the
churches today. If you want this ‘job’
you have to be at the beck and call of the people you lead and you have to do
it for free; let’s see just how many takers we would have. Jesus follows this by saying that leadership
should cost the leader something. Today
it cost these leaders nothing in fact they are paid salaries. WHAT!!!
You may quote Paul’s statement that those who preach the gospel should
live off the gospel, but that is no authorization for them to get fixed
salaries. In fact a fixed salary was
foreign to their concepts. When he says
that they should live from the gospel he meant that they lived based on what
the love of the people they ministered to freely gave to them; not some fixed
salary. But I digress. The key to this is to realize that the leadership
that we have today is not the leadership that God requires, and so it directly
raises its head to compete with the relationship we should have with God.
Together bureaucracy and the
current church leadership style impede our relationship with God. But how exactly does this hamper the return
of Jesus Christ to his rightful place as the only mediator between God and man?
What is produced by
what we have done?
Due to the well-entrenched
structure of the clergy, adherents to the Christian faith have come to see it
as indispensable to developing their walk with the Lord. What now happens is that they see the system
as their link to God. This very act
produces a problem all its own, because eventually you will have persons paying
lip service to God and ignoring his principles of holiness. When you see the ‘Man of God’ by virtue of
this office as holier than you are you will begin to act differently in his
presence because of some perceive specialty.
What then happens is that you develop a respect for him that does not
extend beyond his presence. How many
Christians would think nothing of committing a misstep when in the presence of
their co-workers but would think it unimaginable in the presence of their Pastor? In a church building your speech is honorable
and holy but on your job you would cuss at the drop of a hat. This goes beyond just saying the person is a
carnal-Christian. The problem is that they see the pastor and a church building
as sacred and worthy of respect, BUT they do not realize that the one who
bought them is always with them. This is
the chief problem with the clergy system.
It hinders holiness by placing emphasis on itself, and this naturally
causes its followers to see the institution as holy but not realizing that the
Holy One lives in them. This is why in
our societies you can commit sacrilege by defacing a church building, but there
is no similar out cry when we lust in our hearts.
The fact that the clergy has become
a surrogate for a relationship with God is evident in our lifestyles. We neglect holiness and employ it only when
we are in the presence of those to whom we ascribe honor. This should not be.
What is the purpose of
the Holy Spirit?
Who is the Holy Spirit and how does
he factor into our relationship with God? Jesus describes him as follows:
And I will pray the
Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may be with you for
ever, even the Spirit of truth: whom the world cannot receive; for it beholdeth
him not, neither knoweth him: ye know him; for he abideth with you, and shall
be in you. John 14:16-17
Look carefully at Jesus’ words as he describes the
relationship between you the believer and the Spirit of Truth. He calls him a comforter or in some version a
helper. This can be defined as someone
who comes alongside us to help us. He
comes, Jesus says, to be with us forever.
But what does he come to do and with what does he help us?
But the Comforter, even
the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all
things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said unto you. John
14:26
Jesus says that he is coming to teach each believer
all things and bring to our remembrance all that was taught by Jesus. The Spirit of truth comes to bring us to a
place where we can obey God and walk in accordance with his ways. (Remember the
teaching of the Gospel of the Kingdom in the first installment?)
Howbeit when he, the
Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you into all the truth: for he shall
not speak from himself; but what things soever he shall hear, these shall he
speak: and he shall declare unto you the things that are to come. He shall
glorify me: for he shall take of mine, and shall declare it unto you. All
things whatsoever the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he taketh of
mine, and shall declare it unto you. John 16:13-15
Look at this picture, Jesus says that he will send
the Spirit of Truth to each one who believes. Why would he go through all the trouble to
send the spirit with such a detailed and complex task and not have him fulfill it? I must reiterate that the entire work of the
spirit is to get you to a place of maturity where you are now directly in tune
with God. The Holy Spirit, therefore, is
our connection to God through the teachings of Jesus Christ. This is a wonderful system. God’s design was for us to relate to him
through the Spirit of God that connects us back to God. THIS IS A DIRECT CONNECTION no interface of
the clergy needed. You need no one to accomplish this work in your life; we
just need to yield ourselves to the Holy Spirit as he leads us into all
truth. Problems arise in our lives and
in the body when we neglect the pure system of God. The clergy today seeks to do the work of the Holy
Spirit in your life. This is an
impossible task, and anyone seeking to attempt to do so will be found foolish.
What does God really want from us?
God sent his son Jesus for a reason. The premise of that reason is to reconnect us
back to God. Listen to his words:
Jesus saith unto him, I am
the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the
Father, but by me.
John 14:6
This declaration excludes and negates any attempts
to circumvent the system implemented by God.
He wants to relate with each of us directly, he wants to be our teacher,
our comforter, our helper, our provider and most of all he wants to relate
directly to you. No go between and no
middleman just God and you.
Consider the way it was in the beginning. Adam
walked and talked with God daily. God did
not just create the man and say I do not want to have anything else to do with
you. No, he would commune with him on a daily
basis. We can infer this based on that
fact that Adam was familiar with the sound of the Lord walking in the Garden so
a relationship was present. There was no
choir, no worship leader and no pastor just God communing directly with the
man. This is where we fell from. God
sent Jesus to restore us to the place where we can again relate directly to him.
Consider his invitation through Hebrews:
Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of
need.
This is not the talk of an aloof
God but one who wants to relate to YOU.
This is not a God bogged down in protocol but one that has his ears
attentive to your cry. This is not a God
who is harsh and restrictive to whom we should place a barrier between him and
us. No this is your FATHER.
Consider the tone that God took with
when dealing with Israel
and their request for a king:
But the thing displeased
Samuel, when they said; Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the
LORD. And the LORD said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in
all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected
thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.
1 Samuel 8:6-7
It seems as though God is pretty upset with this
particular request. He takes personal
offence when he says ‘for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected
me, that I should not reign over them’.
Why did he react this way? It is
because he wanted to be king over the people.
They just like we want a person or system they can see, touch and feel
and so we institute clergy systems to act in the stead of God. God in fact explained to them that the king
would deal with them harshly, but oh no they wanted someone they could
see. As I went through the last
installment I am sure that the thought in most readers was what would we do
without our leaders who will solve our dispute or pray for our children. God says to you ‘I am all that you need’. No go between. Listen to his heart:
But this is the covenant
that I will make with the house of Israel
And what agreement hath a temple of God
For this is the covenant
that I will make with the house of Israel After those days, saith the Lord; I
will put my laws into their mind, And on their heart also will I write them: And I will be to them a God, And they shall be to me a people.
Hebrews 8:10
And I heard a great voice
out of the throne saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he
shall dwell with them, and they shall be his
peoples, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. Revelations21:3
Jesus answered and said
unto him, if a man love me, he will keep my word: and my
Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.
John 14:23
Listen to this call, this invitation to you is to
come to him he wants to be with you and have you know of him, not through
someone but directly. Consider this scenario: You are a new parent. You have just had your first child. You have
purchased a whole new wardrobe for the child.
You have an array of toys and trinkets for him to play with. If you are particularly financially astute
you have even a college fund started for the child. Ok, you go through all this to prepare for your
new baby then what do you do. You send
the infant to an infant boarding school 2000 miles away so that the people in
the school can teach the child about you.
You instruct them to teach the child about your mannerisms, your likes
and dislikes, what you expect of them and how you expect them to respond to
your voice when you speak. This contract
is for 18 years after that time the child is to be returned to you with
everything you told them to give him. Also
during this time you have had no contact with the child. What would happen? When the child returns to you, yes, he may
know all that was taught him, but how would he actually respond to YOU?
You would be a stranger to the child in fact he only knows the instructors
at the school, and he has had no time to develop an intimate relationship with YOU.
It is doubtful if he will ever embrace you as his parent, but it is
guaranteed that he has developed and affinity for his instructors. Wouldn’t this be a disaster of the highest
order? Yet this is the exact system that
is in place today. The instructors are
your pastors and the clergy. They teach
you how to respond to God and they teach you what he is like. But God says:
Howbeit when he, the
Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you into all the truth: for he shall not speak
from himself; but what things soever he shall hear, these shall he speak: and
he shall declare unto you the things that are to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall take of mine, and shall
declare it unto you. All things whatsoever the Father hath are mine: therefore
said I that he taketh of mine, and shall declare it unto you.
God HIMSELF wants to teach us about
him. In fact it seems absurd for someone
who does not even know you completely himself to teach a person
about you. By the way, no loving
parent would even think to perform this scenario with their own child yet we
ascribe this system to the all-loving God!
There is one more point to examine
as we close this section. The introduction
of the clergy into the relationship equation of God and man reintroduces an
element that is similar to a structure that was in place when Jesus was
alive. The temple of the Old Covenant
was structured in a very interesting way.
There were the outer courts and the inner courts. In the outer courts was where the people of Israel could congregate
but in the inner court only the priest could go to do ceremonial duties. In the
inner court was the Holy of Holies. This
was a special place that housed the Ark of the Covenant and the very presence
of God. Absolutely no one was allowed in
here but the chief priest, and even he could only enter in on special
occasions. Imagine, the very presence --
the real presence -- of the Almighty God was resident on the earth in a single
place where you could go. The significant
thing was that separating the Holy of Holies from the inner court was a veil:
And thou shalt make a veil
of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen: with cherubim the work
of the skilful workman shall it be made. And thou shalt hang it upon four
pillars of acacia overlaid with gold; their hooks shall be of gold, upon four
sockets of silver. And thou shalt hang up the veil under the clasps, and shalt
bring in thither within the veil the ark of the testimony: and the veil shall separate unto you between the holy place and the
most holy. Exodus 26:31-33
This simply meant that the presence
of God could not be experienced by all but only a few selected individuals that
had been sanctified to do the work of the Lord.
Do you know what became of this veil?
And Jesus cried again with
a loud voice, and yielded up his spirit. And behold,
the veil of the temple was rent in two from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake; and the rocks were rent.
Matthew 27:50-51
Well isn’t that interesting? When
Jesus died on the cross, the very instant he died, several things
happened. One thing in particular was
that the veil, the veil that kept the presence of God from the ordinary man,
was torn apart completely. Now why would God choose to use such
symbolism? He was letting the world know
that through the work of Jesus the way to the presence of God was open to all who received him.
No more ceremonies, no more rituals, no more singing slow songs and fast
songs. The way was open to the one who
accepted him fifty years ago and to the one who accepts him today. His presence is here his arms are open to
receive us and he wants us to get to know him in his fullness.
God wanted to tabernacle with your
directly with no one in between. Well now fast forward to today and what have
we? THE VEIL HAS RETURNED!!! This time it isn’t a curtain of blue, purple and
scarlet. No, this time it is a robe or a
suit on a man on a pulpit. Think of everything
we do today in order to get to the presence of God. They have taught us that we must come
together in a building, be seated in a pew, stand and sing when we are told and
what we are told, bring your tithes and offerings, listen to an individual
preach and then throughout the course of this activity we can then experience
the presence of God. This ritual
accomplishes nothing! Do you think God
went through the trouble of sending his son to die and symbolically tear down a
curtain just so that we can replace one set of rituals with another in order to
meet with him? Do you not see that the
clergy by inserting themselves into the equation have become the veil? All their activity, all their rites and
rituals do nothing more than to further separate the people from their God.
All that is needed is God and his people not God
the clergy and his people!
What would a closer relationship with
God mean?
A relationship directly with God is of utmost
importance to the believer. He is our
source he is our Father and without him we can do nothing. I repeat without HIM we can do
nothing. That said there is one
principle that you must take with you from this installment and that is:
If you cannot hear God for yourself do not let anyone hear him for you.
I have found that there is no shortage of persons
that will exploit your ignorance for the advancement of what they think they
know. This is why it is so very
important to know God, not through your pastor or some organization but
directly. Only he can guide you in the
way you should go. So what exactly would
a closer relationship with God mean?
"But he who enters by
the door is a shepherd of the sheep.” To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls
his own sheep by name and leads them out. "When he puts forth all his own,
he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.”A
stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do
not know the voice of strangers." John 10:2-5
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:
And I give unto them eternal life; and they
shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
John 10:27-28
Do you see what he expects of us? Notice he did not say that he knows the voice
of his sheep, of course he knows his sheep, but the emphasis is placed on the sheep knowing his voice. It is only when we know his voice that we can
then flee from the voice of strangers because until that time all
voices are strangers. You must come to
know his voice; you must come to know him.
To know him requires that we abide with him. Consider the following:
You are already clean
because of the word which I have spoken to you.” Abide in Me, and I in you. As
the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither
can you unless you abide in Me.
This abiding that is being described here is not
some casual acquaintance. God is inviting
you to stay with him; not only that, look at the symbolism he uses to describe
the relationship he wants with you. ‘I am the vine,
you are the branches’. This is
rich imagery that gives us an idea of the relationship he wants to have with
us. He is the vine and you are the branches. Contemplate what that means for a moment; he
is the plant and you are the branch. I have examined plants all my life and I
have never seen a coupling between a plant and its branches. GOD WANTS TO CONNECT DIRECTLY WITH YOU. No one else in between; we need no other to
connect us. We do not need rituals, or
ceremonies, or clergy, or for that matter church services as we know them. God is well able to connect directly to us
for he loves us and wants to be with us.
Throughout these tenets I have sought
to show how the body of Christ has strayed from its safe harbor. We have taken missteps that have caused us to
shipwreck and damage ourselves and those that may have entered in. The confusion that overwhelms us is only
comparable to the ignorance that enslaves us.
But God would have you to be free.
He made us to be free, free to worship and connect with him. He is your Lord and he calls you to
himself. Embrace the truth and welcome
home.
