Many of the evil practices inside the so-called ‘Churches’ today, like Elections, Politics, Bribing, Immorality, fights for positions, etc. hascreated a sense of confusion, surprise and sadness in the hearts of genuine believers. Such confusions mainly arise because many today are unable to differentiate between manmade organizations and the Church of God
First, we must understand that church is not an Organization, but an Organism. Many of the so-called “churches” are NOT the churches planted by God. They are all manmade organizations.
The body of Christ: Church
The church of God, like the human body, is an organism and the Head of this body is Jesus Christ. When a person truly repents and is born again, He is born and baptized by the Spirit (Life) of God into the body of Christ. This church which is the body of Christ is invisible, universal and not limited to a time or place. This Universal Church is made up of all born-again believers from every tribe, nation, and language, from the past until Christ’s return.
1 Corinthians 12:12-13 “For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit”.
Galatians 3:27-28 “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus”.
However, a born-again believer who has become a part of the universal body by the new birth should seek fellowship in a Local Church.
Only in such a local church, subject to the authority God has placed, can a born-again child grow in spiritual maturity, until he is transformed into the image of Christ, hence building the body of Christ. To equip him for his work, God has appointed Prophets; Evangelists; Pastors and Teachers in the local church.
The role of these ministers is "to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the church which is the body of Christ may be built up’ and it will continue ‘until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ." (Ephesians 4:11-13).
The Local church is the visible expression of the Universal body of Christ.
The Church is not a building where believers gather, but a body of living believers, who by the Spirit of God have been built as living stones forming a holy temple in the Lord (1 Peter 2:5 )
The Church is not a gathering of like-minded people. It is a fellowship of different people led in unity by the Spirit. It is different grains, gathered, ground and mixed to form one bread. (1 Corinthians 10:17)
The Church is not an Organization led by human leaders. It is a living organism controlled by Christ the head, and all members as living parts of the body, under the authority of the Head. (1 Corinthians 12:12)
Only Christ is the head of the local Church and every member of the body must be directly connected to, and controlled by, Christ the Head.
None of the organs in our human body acts at its own will; neither do they perform any activities to convince the head they are a part of the body. Rather, all our organs are at rest, making themselves available to obey immediately any commandment they receive from the head.
Just as every organ in the body receives and obeys the command from the head, so the local members of the body of Christ should be ready and available while being at rest, to obey immediately any commandment from the Head.
By taking a membership, we can be a part of any organization, and we can continue being a part by following their external rules and traditions. This can also include the removal of ornaments, following certain dress pattern, obeying certain rules and policies etc... But we can never be a part of the Church body by following such external patterns.
For an organ to be a part of a body, it should have the same life which is in the body. Instead, if it looks like an organ, if it is attached with the body like an organ, or even if it imitates all the actions of the other organs, it will still be a lifeless artificial organ, which is not a part of the body.
Similarly, a person can be a member of the body of Christ- the Church, ONLY by receiving the same Life- blood (Life is in the blood- Leviticus 17:11) passing through the body.
The life of Christ is the eternal life, which we received when we are born again. That is how we became a part of the Church of God. We who were dead in sin, received the life of Christ, thus becoming a part of the body of Christ and being lead and controlled by Christ the Head.
Just as the organs in the body are not competitive or jealous of other organs, in the same way in the real Church of God, the real members will not be competitive or jealous of one others Instead, there will be love, care and the unity of Spirit.
However, people who have not received the life of Christ, who are NOT part of the body of Christ, but just by following certain external rules and performing external activities have become a part of an Organization, will naturally be jealous, competitive and among them, there will be disputes for positions. But the harsh reality is that they are fooling themselves and others by considering themselves as part of the Church.
Man Made Organizations: Babylon.
Both Church and Manmade Organizations may have similar activities, but the distinctive mark of a member of a Church, which differentiates him from the member of Manmade Organizations, is the life of God inside him, his absolute submission and obedience to Christ- the Head and the love, care and unity of Spirit he has with other members of the body.
The idea of bringing together such local churches under an organizational structure, misinterpreting them as churches and electing central, district pastors, president, secretary to these organizations, is the deceptive idea of Satan.
As we discussed, as per God’s plan there are only born-again believers, the local church which is a gathering of born-again believers in an area and the Universal Church, made up of all born-again believers from every tribe, nation, and language not limited to a time or place.
God from time to time, uses Godly men to plant local churches and under God-given authority appoint ministers in these churches. Satan, on the other hand, brings these local churches under organizational structure and through election appoints central, district pastors, president, secretary… etc to these organizations.
This is Satan’s Babylon structure - Manmade Organization (from man, for man and through man: Daniel 4:30), and not the Church of God (From God through God and to God: Romans 11:36)
This deception of Satan can be seen from the beginning of human history. Even when all men lived sinfully, God chose Noah, blessed him and asked him to spread around the earth (Gen: 9:1). But as we see Satan enticed a man named Nimrod and brought them together under one organization to build the Babel tower. We see that God had to intervene and scatter them to stop them from making an organization under man's leadership (Genesis 10:25).
If we carefully examine, we will see that that the first man-made organization and today's organizations have exactly the same intention “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we are scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.” Genesis 11: 4.
This is the Satan’s structure - From man, for man and through man.
This deception of Satan can be seen throughout the bible and church history. Such organizations are Babylon of 21st century.
It is extremely important for us to understand why Satan has been deceiving believers to build such Babylonian organizations.
Satan is fully aware that by corrupting the leadership of an organization, it can pollute the whole community under this leadership. And, if a local church has an association with such Babylonian organizations, most likely the corruption of the leadership will affect the members also.
Since these are manmade organizations, like any other worldly organization, it’s natural to have a president, secretary, central, district “pastors” etc through elections.
And there will be politics, scheming, bribing and fight for positions like any other worldly organizations. And as is common, the rich, influential worldly and corrupt people will become the leaders.
Since most of these organizations are corrupted, the most corrupted, influential people are in the leadership, thus turning the “church” organizations into a worse state than the other worldly organizations.
But we must understand that these organizations have no relation to the New Testament Church. We are wrong in thinking that as there are no elections in the New Testament Church; these man-made organizations should also not have an election. These kind of organizations itself are not in the New Testament. The election system in these organizations are NOT wrong, but as per the Bible, these organizations themselves are absolutely wrong.
As it is in every spiritual movement in history, at the beginning of the Pentecostal movement, churches were planted as local fellowships and in the early years, there was only spiritual relation between these local churches. But bringing these local fellowships under the organizational structure was the first deviation from God’s plan. As in the bible and in the church history, it was the old crafty deception of the devil that deceived God’s people to build Babel.
What else can such Organizations do other than having elections to appoint a president, secretary or superintendent? Should we say they must seek God’s guidance to find a president? Is God obliged to hear the prayer and guide them to choose a president for a Babylonian organization? It will be like people seeking guidance from God to find a leader for constructing the Babel tower.
So like any other democratic organization, it is natural for them to conduct elections. And there is no point in opposing such a practice.
Evil fruits from the evil root:
As we saw, this organizational system is the root of all current evils inside it. Elections, bribing, corruption fight for positions…are all the natural evil fruits coming from this evil root. As Jesus said, a bad tree with evil root cannot bear good fruit, it always produces bad fruits (Mathew 7:18).
Therefore, unless we dare to stand against the evil root that is the organizational Babylonian structure itself, all our efforts to clean this system will be like expecting a bad tree to become good by cutting off some of the bad fruits.
That is why instead of speaking against the evil fruits (election, politics, bribing...), the prophet of God should stand against the evil root, as John the Baptist and Jesus did. But as in all centuries, prophets who stand for the truth are rare in Christendom. There were 7000 men in Israel who did not bow down to Baal. But there was only one Elijah in Israel who stood before God and stood up against King Ahab and Isabel.
Similarly, there are many good believers, pastors, teachers who live uprightly and teach many good things. But there are very few who stand before God and against this corrupted system and its leaders.
In reality, a born-again child of God, servant of God should not eat or even share the platform with those backslidden organization leaders who live in sin and immorality. These are the people, as the Bible says who blaspheme the name of our Lord among gentiles.
“These denying the Lord who bought them, bring on themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed” 2 Peter 2:1-2
But if we, without separating ourselves, become compromisers and try to fix the Babylonian structure, while being part of it; no matter however genuine our efforts may be but it will be in vain. It will be like patching up an old bad coat with a piece of new cloth or pouring new wine into old wineskins (old structure).
As our master said, it will never work, the new patch will shrink and make an even bigger hole in the coat, for the skins will burst, the wine will pour out, and the skins will be ruined…. (Mathew 9:16- 17)
God’s call to His Children is to Come Out of Babylon and be separate:
Therefore, we should not try to make this Babylonian system better or more scriptural. It will be a futile exercise. Our Lord does not command us to change these Babylonian organizations; God is asking His people, Born again children of God, those who are still in these systems to come out and be separate (Revelation 7:9)
Come out, and be separate as a local fellowship, which is a visible expression of the invisible body of Christ. Be part of the work of God’s Church, wherever He has placed you. Trusting in the grace of God, oppose the Babylonian structure and its leadership.
God is calling His people to come out and be separate because God is going to judge this Babylon system once and for all.
“And I heard another voice out of Heaven saying, My people, come out of her, that you may not share in her sins, and that you may not receive of her plagues; because her sins joined together, even up to Heaven, and God remembered her unjust deeds” Rev 18:4, 5
“Because of this, in one day her plagues shall come: death, and mourning, and famine; and she will be consumed with fire, for the Lord God judging her is strong” Rev 18:8
He, who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. Amen.
Brother Jinu Ninan