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The Church Universal

Tlaloc, I think you'll find the new teaching article on the family as a Christian Assembly, a church, to be very interesting. The old school Calvinists, the Puritans like Cotton Mather, Covenant theologians like Herman Witsius who wrote The Economy of the Covenants Between God and Man, and Jonathan Edwards saw the Christian Assembly in a different way. They saw the covenant made between a man and woman establishing a church there with the man as the overseer and the woman as the helpmate and then their mission was ordained of God to be a missiological entity that should go forth with the great commission. To them a covenant theology meant that when two people came together like that it was indeed a church in small form.
 
Tlaloc said:
I belive I came off wrong here, so I should re-state my meaning now that I'm a little more rested.

My own belief:

Church is any assembly any time for a specific purpose. Classifying it as a local assembly is fine with me.
All those in Christ will assemble in the Kingdom of God to worship him after Judgment.

The Universal Church is everyone who will assemble that glorious day, the local church is just what it sounds like.

I disagree with those who say there is no universal church, but its not a big deal to me on the whole.

I strongly disagree with those who say there is no universal church because they believe Baptists are the 'only true evangelical church' and I also see that belief in the article DaPastor Posted. That's what got me so riled up.

I do not believe anyone here is an exclusivist like that, and I believe DaPastor has made much better points than the reference he cited. I am baffled as to why he cited that particular reference, and I'd like to ask why. But I do apologize for my hostility where it wound up misdirected, it was aimed at that link, not anyone here.
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Hi,

First of all, I am not an Independent Baptist (and yes, many believe they are THE only true representation of Church) I shared the article because of the essence of his arguments. Do I agree with everything contained therein? No! I tend to be a little more "evidence" oriented, and do not believe any Christian group is the only true representative of Church structure). However, he comes much closer to the truth than many who actually believe things like the passage that speaks about where "two or three" are gathered actually is speaking about a church meeting.

Ok, I admit, since I didn't want to continue the debate (people get to offended here), I took the easy way out.

No offense taken here.
 
DaPastor,
Ok, I admit, since I didn't want to continue the debate (people get to offended here), I took the easy way out.
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Fair enough :)

I am curious though, so I will as if you are willing to would you, in point form, without further elaboration, citation, or discussion, say what you believe the Church is (and what it is necessarily not) so I may at least understand where you are coming from? For the many words and much discussion you've had on the topic I seem to have lost what you where saying. I ask only for my own interest, and if it is too much by all means refuse.


Keith,

There are certainly interesting points in that article. Though I believe saying 'the family is as a Christian Church' is actually backwards of the reality. A local family does not go out to meet each other, they live with each other, they never will be an assembly as such. The reality is that when Christians assemble (church) they should behave as a family. We should not have every Father as a Pastor, but every Pastor as a Father.

While I suppose this means we disagree on the semantics, in practice it means I believe the same as you.

I cautiously believe... that the 1 Timothy 3:2 phrase of "a man of one woman" [mias gunaikos andra] literally means that the man to be appointed as a ruler over multiple family heads should be currently ruling over a family himself.
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I bang on agree there. I agree perfectly with the practical consideration section as well.

I suppose I would agree to the definition working the other way as well. Would a definition like this work:
"The Church is where the Family of God meets."
In a building, in the world, or heaven?
 
I suppose I would agree to the definition working the other way as well. Would a definition like this work:
"The Church is where the Family of God meets."
In a building, in the world, or heaven?
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I think that would be fair to the biblical texts for the most part. For me that definition would allow for a family to be meeting as a Christian Assembly in Christ as well as able to join in with the larger portion of the body of Christ in whatever region they are in at the present moment.

I would be a little hesitant to say that it is only the church when it is meeting though for the simple reason that line of thinking follows the Barth, Brunner, Bultman ideology (Neo-Orthodox theologians) that says things become something by faith or in this case by the faith meeting. They taught that the word of God became true when mixed with faith.

I would, because of how view the Kingdom of God in its five distinct levels or spheres, still see any believer who is in Christ and who lives in an area as part of the assembly of that area because of the baptism work of the Spirit. This is where our dear friend and brother Dr. Graves I think made his definition a little too tight. He properly said the blood precedes church and Spirit baptism precedes water baptism. In that he was right but if that is right, which I think it is, then that places someone immediately into the body of Christ because the person is associated with his head, Jesus Christ. Thus if one is under that headship he is in the family or assembly or among the called out of darkness domain and thus in the kingdom domain in some degree or another.

Which is why for me the five spheres of God's kingdom makes sense theologically. It place the emphasis back on the key issue, which is not the assembly in the building per see but rather the saints of a region who are to join in with other saints for discipleship and for the cause of the kingdom to be advanced. Those born again thus do not "become the church" but they ARE members of the regional church by them being immediately called out of darkness and if truly of the church, i.e. people who have been called out of darkness and Satan's kingdom, then they WILL seek to unite with godly brothers and sisters because of their true and real faith inside of them.
 
Just a side note about independent Baptists. Independent is the key word. Many of us can't seem to get along with others well. :lol:
The reality is however that each congregation answers to the Lord and no organization can speak for each church, so we end up with a lot of differing opinions and those hearing one churches stance think that each church shares those values. Not likely.
 
John,

I know what you mean :lol: But we do have a pretty strong IB fellowship conference up here that we get along well with. When we do argue it tends to be us wild west types against the uptight easterners (on things like music, cards, ect)

Keith,
I can understand you're hesitance and desire not to be like them, but how do you take the assembling out of a root that means, called out to an assembly?

I've never heard of the five spheres, if I had to guess it would be something like personal\municipal\regional\global\celestial?
 
Tlaloc,

The five kingdoms mentioned in Scripture are as follows:
The Bible presents 5 types of kingdoms.

1. Providential kingdom (God's universal sovereign rule over all). Psalm 103:19

2. Theocratic Kingdom (God's rule over the nation of Israel in the OT). 2 Sam. 7:5-16; 1 Chron. 17:3-15

3. Spiritual Kingdom (God's rule over all who are born again from Genesis to Revelation). John 3:3-8

4. Mystery Kingdom (professing Christendom). Parables set forth by Christ from Matthew 13 onward

5. The Future earthly Millennial Kingdom. Ezekiel 39; Zech. 14; Luke 1:33; Matt. 25:31-46; Reve. 20:1-6

As for the root of ecclesia, I AGREE it means called out to assemble. But the question is twofold:
(a) called out of what? I see that it means called out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of the light. From Satan's kingdom to Christ's kingdom. (see Col. 1).
(b) when does the assembly meet? I agree the church is provincial, i.e. it assembles whenever two or more believers who are in the kingdom of light come together for the purpose of fellowship in Christ around the gospel of grace. And such, a family of believers (husband, wife, etc) can certainly do that with ease.
 
Dr. Allen wrote,
As for the root of ecclesia, I AGREE it means called out to assemble. But the question is twofold:
(a) called out of what? I see that it means called out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of the light.
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If ecclesia is also used for civil assemblies, would it not be plausible for the parameters of the civil assembly to be similar to the ecclesiastical assembly, barring any modifying text?
 
Hummmm....I do not know. Maybe.

Normally when doing word studies we do examine how a word is used in non-biblical literature, especially around the time of the biblical text itself in date.

So it very well may have been used for civil assemblies too. I'll have to think about that for awhile. You may have some texts in mind or some sources in mind that already give a good basis for that. I'm just not coming up with anything off the top of my head on that for the moment.
 
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