Tags
Church, fellowship, local, new birth, Regeneration, requirements
The Church belongs to Christ Jesus. It’s His, not ours. We belong to it, but He is the owner and founder of it as well as the One who states the requirements for admission.
When the church begins to take into consideration image control of resident celebrities or societies, or takes into consideration any element that may or may not affect the number of those attending, such leadership is less than adequate in regards to the glory of God. To rely on numbers and wealth is to ask the fellowship to be less than what Christ intended. To trust in the mechanism of a living religious operation, without the foundation of the true fellowship of Christ and His elect is folly.
Some, perhaps many, are regarding the fellowship a small thing in light of the more grandiose prospect of future earthly glory for themselves, and yet the Scripture still says:
Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not. – I Corinthians 11:22
No, the only requirement for Church membership is that any human being, man or woman, who realizes and professes themselves disciples, committed, in and by faith alone, to follow both Jesus’ commands and example till death, will as a result, have life eternal with Him.
Finally, something I can wholeheartedly agree with.
God Bless
That’s what it takes to belong to the universal church. Each local church should have a membership class or orientation so folks know the doctrinal position of the elders before committing to membership and so elders can make reasoned decisions about welcoming folk in. There are defensible differences in ecclesiology and liturgy and there are trouble makers who move from church to church. So there should be a fence that protects the local church and informs those who approach her.
Manfred, I am no longer a Landmarker, but the notion of a “universal church” still makes me scratch my head a bit Certainly there is a universality of a common faith, a brotherhood in Christ, and other kindred connections between brethren that displays a common bond between all those that name Christ – but on this earth, what is the “universal church?” What is it’s function? Certainly, there is Heb. 12:23 but that seems to speak to the gathered people of God in prospect before Him in the life to come. At the very least, it seems to me that the local church is THE focus of the NT. Whatever the universal church is in this world, if it exists at all, neither baptizes nor disciples nor provides elders nor does ANYTHING concrete or tangilbe that I can discern. CLEARLY, every genuine spiritual function and duty of the church is a function of the local church, or those acting in the defacto capacity of a local church
David – the universal church consists of all the redeemed saints of the living God, from all ages, including those still present here on Earth and those whose souls are with Christ and the Father in Heaven, waiting the resurrection of their bodies. Not everyone in a given local church is a Christian – for the chad grows with the wheat until the End. Universal church is that which we cannot see – not to confused with the local, visible church – which is very much a main topic within the New Testament.
But those false professors within the local church cannot benefit from the promises of God not will they inherit the Kingdom of Heaven.
Manfred: If I left you with the impression I was unfamiliar with the doctrine of the “universal church,” it was unintentional. It is, from my point of view, one of those grand assumptions that many Christians make concerning the nature of the church. My view is, though it is nearly “universally accepted” (pun intended!) it is a view not often serioiusly examined. As I said above, there is certainly a universality of believers – exprerssed by words like “kingdom,” or “family of God,” and I do not deny the kinship of all believers as brethern under the rule and reign of Christ. I know my view is a minority view held only by Baptists, and a minority among even Baptists – but I simply do not see ekklesis used in a universal sense. A “universal church,” as I said above, has no function, no utitlity, it cannot discipline, it cannot preach, it cannot do anything The only church the NT knows is the local church. In fact to even say “local church” is essentially a redundancy.
I held to the “universal church” idea in a defacto way as many Christians do untill it was challenged by some Baptist friends of mine in 1975. If you study it (assuming you have not)- many of the key early Baptist thinkers in this country had an aversion to the universal church doctrine. There are Baptist associations that reject it – ABA, BMA come to mind. Perhaps this seems to be “much ado about nothing,” and I admit it probably seems a little esoteric – but you would have to do what no other writer or theologian or friend has done in over 35 years to convince me that the ekklesia is somehow universal.