The
Study of the Doctrine of the Church
|
Session Twenty-Four: JESUS, THE GLORIOUS
CHURCH
Introduction
|
Through the pages of the Old Testament, the
prophets spoke of a reoccurring theme. The people had violated the
Sanctuary of God. Because they had turned from the ways of their God, an
enemy would destroy their temple, their cities, and their nation. The
people of God would be carry off into captivity. Yet, their God would
not leave them in despair. He would restore their kingdom.
The prophet Hosea also told of the destruction of Israel and the
promised restoration. He said in the days that Israel would be restored,
"the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the
sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass,
that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people,
there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living
God" (1:10). He continued with the promise of God to Israel:
"I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy; and I will
say to them which were not my people, Thou art my people; and they shall
say, Thou art my God" (2:23).
It is these exact words that Peter uses when he talks of the New
Testament believers: "But ye are a chosen generation, a royal
priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth
the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his
marvelous light: Which in time past were not a people, but are now the
people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained
mercy" (1 Peter 2:9-10).
Paul plainly called those who believed that Jesus was the Christ the
restored Israel of God. He said, "For in Christ Jesus
neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new
creature. And as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them,
and mercy, and upon the Israel of God" (Gal. 6:15-16). When he used
the term "Christ," he was recognizing Jesus was the long
awaited Messiah. This Jew of Jews, Pharisee of Pharisees had come to
know that the believers in Christ were the fulfilment of the promised
restoration of the kingdom of God.
It is to the people of the kingdom of God that James addressed his
letter: "James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to
the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting." He saw the
followers of the Lord Jesus Christ as the continence or more accurately
the fulfilment of the kingdom of God concealed in the Old Testament. The
physical nation of Israel of the old economy was the type and the shadow
of the spiritual kingdom of God in the New Testament. Although the
followers of Jesus where physical people living in a physical world,
this natural world was not their home for they were not of this world.
They were earthly people living in, by, and through the heavenly
realm--the kingdom of God.
The truth of this simple opening statement, "to the twelve tribes
which are scattered abroad," contains the underlying essence of the
entire Epistle of James. It is the basis of the first twelve verses
which concludes with believers experiencing "the crown of
life"-- the glory of the kingdom of God. The heart of the letter of
James is concerned with the lack of the basic manifestation or
performance of Jesus in the lives of people who say they
believe--although they were kingdom saints, they were living as if they
were not experiencing the glory of God. The Epistle of James then closes
with admonitions for true believers to help those who were struggling in
experiencing the kingdom of God because they had become to earthly
minded.
Something that seemed to be so fundamentally simple to the early
believers has become clouded in complex misunderstanding in much of the
visible church today. For example, in the earliest writings of
Christianity (James, 1Thessalonians, and Galatians), There is no
structure of polity stressed by those early writers. There epistles were
evidently written before the tentacles of organized religion even began
to make inroads into the simple gathering of believers. They were
concerned with the affairs of everyday living--experiencing the kingdom
of God-- as opposed to the intricacies of a structured system with all
of its injustice.
The essence of Paul’s entire letter to the Galatians centered around
an issue that some wanted to make a physical sign or commitment a
requirement for Christian fellowship. Paul immediately saw that any
ritual required by the visible church is only a means to separate and
divided the people into those who are from those who are not. His answer
was a simple, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither
bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in
Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and
heirs according to the promise" (Gal. 3:28-29).
The Promise had come. When Jesus was a child, he was brought to the
temple to fulfil the customs of the law. A certain man in Jerusalem,
name Simeon, who, as Luke recorded, was "waiting for the
consolation of Israel." The Holy Spirit was upon him and had
revealed to him that he would not see death before he had seen "the
Lord’s Christ" (Luke 2:25-27).
On a certain day, he was led by the Holy Spirit to the temple. When the
parents of the child Jesus came into the temple, Simeon took him up in
his arms, Blessed God, and said, "Lord, now lettest thou thy
servant depart in peace, according to thy word: For mine eyes have seen thy
salvation, Which thou hast prepared before the face of all
people; A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy
people Israel" (Luke 2:28-32).
The glorious church exists in its glory because the only thing that can
be seen by the eyes of man is the manifestation of the glory of God’s
people--Jesus Christ. The kingdom of God, the realm of the true church,
as Jesus said, "cometh not with observation." It is
"within you" (Luke 17:20,21). You can not see it. You can only
see the manifestation of its presence by the manifestation of Jesus
among the people. No Jesus, no glory -- no glory, no church. Jesus is
the glorious church.
|
CD 24 Is
Approximately Forty-Five Minutes of Exposition
on the Words of Jesus Found in the Gospels
|
REQUEST
BOOK SIX AND CD'S NOW
|
TOP
|
Session Twenty-Five: JESUS, THE
TRIUMPHANT CHURCH
Introduction
|
When Jesus asked His disciples, "Whom
do men say that I the Son of man am?" The disciples responded with
"Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others,
Jeremias, or one of the prophets." Jesus then said back to them,
"But whom say ye that I am?
Peter spoke up as he often did and answered, "Thou art the Christ,
the Son of the living God." Jesus in turn told Peter, "Blessed
art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto
thee, but my Father which is in heaven." Then, Jesus make this
remarkable statement, "And I say also unto thee, That thou art
Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church [a calling out, i.e.
(concretely) an assembly]; and the gates [a gate, i.e. the leaf of a
folding entrance] of hell [properly, unseen, i.e. "Hades"]
shall not prevail against it" (Matt. 16:13-18). The picture is not
"Hades" attacking the church as portrayed my many in the
visible church today. Rather, Jesus is stating that which makes up the
church cannot be stopped by any gate of "Hades." The gospel of
Jesus Christ can penetrate all darkness and bring light and healing to
all those who are in darkness.
All of the early followers of Jesus, including Jesus, believed in the
forces of darkness. They believed there was satanic action in the world
of their day. They knew the powerful potential for destruction the
adversary possessed in the lives of the people. They continually warned
of the ever present temptation that could beset every person. They,
however, were not mythological in their belief. They did not make "satan"
into something he was not.
They knew that the enemy of their souls would never come from without.
The temptation to corruption that would destroy them would always come
from within their own thinking. They knew the mind out of the control of
the Holy Spirit was the adversary that brought death and destruction to
the soul of man.
Jesus believed there was satanic power. Moreover, He knew exactly where
this satanic power had its seat of authority. When He told his followers
that he would be killed (Matt. 16:13-28), Peter responded with "not
so Lord, be it for from thee." Jesus then said to Peter, "Get
thee behind me, Satan: for thou art an offence unto me." Peter’s
expression, "Not so Lord," placed him in an adversarial role
to the outworking of the will of God for the life of Jesus.
Jesus told him that his problem began when he had exercised his mind and
came up with a faulty conclusion: "For thou savourest [translated
from a word meaning, "to exercise the mind"] not the things
that be of God, but those that be of man." Peter’s own
imaginations had brought him to an erroneous belief . This faulty
thinking put Peter in opposition to what Jesus said was going to occur.
Peter was an adversary to the purpose of God in the life of Jesus.
Peter would eventually come to understand this basic struggle of man. He
knew it would be for the control of his mind. He would later write,
"Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober . . ." (1
Pet. 1:13). Do not attempt to experience life in the thinking of the
mind. Do not become entangled by the intoxicating fantasy of your own
imaginations. Be sober. Let your mind be sustained by the power of the
Holy Spirit.
Peter added. "Be sober, be vigilant because your adversary . .
." (1 Pet. 5:8) seeks to intoxicate you to destroy your soul. In
other words, once the mind begins to escalate its worrisome thoughts of
a current problem, the soul becomes intoxicated with its own created
anxiety. The mind runs out of control and "sleep won’t come the
whole night through." Instead of living in the peace and rest of a
sound mind controlled by the Holy Spirit, the soul is being devoured by
the run away imaginations of its own mind.
Paul also knew of the destructiveness of the mind. Standing among some
people that were steeped in religious activities, he said, ". . . I
perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious" (Acts 17:22).
Their zeal to be religious had led them into meaningless beliefs and
practices that carried no godly significance. They were more in line
with occult practices than the ways of God.
He would later admonish another group of highly religious people:
"Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth
itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every
though to the obedience of Christ" (2 Cor. 10:5). It is only the
thinking of man’s mind that can create within the mind something that
can be exalted above the knowledge of God. The mind can create its own
world of fantasy.
Although these vain imaginations have no validity other than to the mind
which created them, they can become very powerful. To the degree the
fantasy is believed to be true is the degree of power and of bondage the
deluded person now find himself to his fantasy. This vain imagination
stands in the life of that person as the adversary to the ways of God.
As Paul also stated, "the carnal [fleshly] mind is enmity
["hostility", derived from its root word, "an
adversary"] against God: for it is not subject to the law of God,
neither indeed can be" (Rom. 8:7).
Satanic activity, the forces of the spirit of man, always comes from the
inner working of the mind of man. As Paul warned the Philippians,
"For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you
even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: Whose
end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in
their shame, who mind earthly things" (3:18,19). The glory of man
(the intellectual power of the mind under the control of the Holy
Spirit) becomes the shame of man when the carnal mind takes man down and
away from God with each imagination.
In a world created by his fantasies and imaginations (imaginations that
sometimes can become more powerful than the mind that created them) man
now believes he can control his life by living in his fantasies. God
still rules every action of the universe, but in the make believe world
of his mind, man thinks he controls the happenings of his life. His own
imagination is the great adversary to the ways of God in his life.
The church triumphant is triumphant because the good news of the gospel
of Jesus Christ simply declares that the heavenly Father has sent His
Son into the life of the believer to baptize him with the Holy
Spirit--to conquer his mind. God "will keep him in perfect peace,
whose mind is stayed on him" The mind, conquered by the Holy
Spirit, is sustained as man walks through the valley of the shadow of
death and fears no evil. "He that dwelleth in the secret place of
the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty." He
"shall not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow
that flieth by day: Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor
for the destruction that wasteth at noonday." Because the LORD has
become your refuge, even the most High, your habitation. Surely goodness
and mercy shall follow you all the days of your life: and you can dwell
in the house of the LORD for ever. Jesus is the church triumphant.
|
CD 25 Is
Approximately Forty-Five Minutes of Exposition
on the Words of Jesus Found in the Gospels
|
REQUEST
BOOK SIX AND CD'S NOW
|
TOP
|
Session Twenty-Six: JESUS, THE GOVERNING
CHURCH
Introduction
|
An angel came down from God into the little
town of Nazareth and spoke to a young woman name Mary. He said to her,
"Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee:
blessed art thou among women." She, as any women would, "was
troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation
this should be." The angel then spoke words of comfort and
catalyst: "Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God.
And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and
shalt call his name JESUS. He shall be great, and shall be called the
Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of
his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever;
and of his kingdom there shall be no end" (Luke 1:26-33). The angel
proclaimed that Jesus was to receive the throne of David, reign over the
house of Jacob, and see no end to His kingdom.
Many years before the birth of Jesus in one of the great prophecies
concerning His coming, the prophet Isaiah spoke this words:
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the
government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called
Wonderful, Counseller, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The
Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there
shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to
order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from
henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform
this. (Isa 9:6,7)
The government of this kingdom would be upon Him. The increase of His
kingdom would see no end. He would ensure its peace and prosperity. He
would establish the decrees and the righteousness within His kingdom. He
would be essence of its reign and its rule. The zeal of the Lord of
hosts would make it all come to pass.
When the wise men came to Bethlehem saying, "Where is he that is
born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are
come to worship him." Herod the earthly king of the Jews was
troubled, as with the rest of the city of Jerusalem. He demanded of the
chief priests and the scribes where this King of the Jews would be born.
They answered Herod and said, "In Bethlehem of Judaea" and
quoted Micah, the prophet: "And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda,
art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come
a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel" Matt. 2:1-6).
From the mouths of prophets and of angels came the ringing catalyst that
the government of the people of God rest solely on the shoulders of
Jesus. As Jesus Himself said, "be not ye called Rabbi: for one is
your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren. And call no man your
father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.
Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ"
(Matt. 23:8-10). Jesus Christ rules His kingdom.
This is the great hope of the kingdom of God. The government of the
kingdom is perfect in righteousness and in justice. In the kingdom of
God, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor
free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ
Jesus" (Gal. 3:28).
The government of the kingdom of God is in direct opposition to the
government of the world. When the mother of James and John came to Jesus
requesting that her sons be given positions of authority and honor in
His kingdom, Jesus promptly informed her and her sons that they did not
understand the government of the kingdom of God (Matt. 20:20-27).
For even Jesus did not bring about the reign and the rule of His
kingdom. The prophet had said that this kingdom would come to pass by
the zeal of the LORD of host. Jesus simply said, "to sit on my
right hand, and on my left, is not mine to give, but it shall be given
to them for whom it is prepared of my Father."
Secondly, as indicated by the rest of the apostles being "moved
with indignation against the two brethren," they had a faulty
concept of the privilege of kingdom rule. Jesus told them that the
kingdoms of the world are ruled by princes that exercise authority to
control and to subjugate the people. He added that the rulers of the
world take full privilege of being the one who is in charge. He quickly
added, "But it should not be so among you."
Jesus declared the mystery of kingdom living. He said, "whosoever
will be great among you, let him be your minister [an attendant, i.e. a
waiter (at table or in other menial duties)]. And whosoever will be
chief among you, let him be your servant [a slave; frequently, therefore
in a qualified sense of subjection or subserviency]: Even as the Son of
man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his
life a ransom [something to loose with, i.e. a redemption price] for
many." Waiter of menial duties, slave of subserviency, and setting
people free by taking on their debt, probably was not what the mother of
James and John had in mind for her sons.
It is however how the government of the kingdom of God increases and
sees no end. Jesus said the kingdom of God had come. He proclaimed
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to
preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the
brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of
sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised" (Luke
4:18). The beggarly have their needs met; those in bondage are
delivered; those who are lost fine their way; those who have been
crushed are set free; the brokenhearted are healed. All because Jesus
flows through people who become waiters of menial duties, slaves of
subserviency, and taking on the debts of others to set them free. There
is blessed peace, joy, and righteousness in the kingdom of God because
Jesus is the governing church.
|
CD 26 Is
Approximately Forty-Five Minutes of Exposition
on the Words of Jesus Found in the Gospels
|
REQUEST
BOOK SIX AND CD'S NOW
|
TOP
|
|
|
Schedule