The One True Church
Written by Elinor Montgomery – emontgomery@cogeco.ca
January 06, 2003
There are two kinds of churches – one is the true church, and the other is the institutional church. One is the apostolic church based on the rock foundation with Jesus as the Christ and the Son of God; the other comes out of Rome, with a pope and a hierarchy of priests, as its foundation.
The institutional church became a religion known as Christianity, with its roots in the failing Roman Empire of Constantine. It splintered into denominations as it broke out of its Romanism, to begin a process of purifying itself in an attempt to return to its original foundation. Yet, it retained its institutional nature, and denominations and buildings sprang up again, which just became a larger form of Christianity. Still, it was a religion, now made up of various belief systems and doctrines, having varying degrees of rooting in the truth of the Bible. Today, we see the extremes, running from total belief in the truth of the Word, with Jesus, Lord and King, who is yet to come to rule and reign over the world, to a system of religion united to all other world religions, while at the same time declaring a lack of belief in the divinity of Jesus. An example of the latter is the United Church of Canada. An example of the former would be John Hagee’s Cornerstone Church, the former being an individual ministry strongly rooted in the Bible, as compared to the latter, a denominational ministry that submits to the authority of a presbytery and not the authority of the Bible.
The apostolic church was commissioned by Jesus, when He sent His twelve apostles into all the world to preach the gospel. They were sent into a world hostile toward them, ruled by the Roman Empire. They were a living church, not a fixed church. They were not about buildings, but were about action. They were nicknamed Christians by the Romans and Greeks – the term first used in Antioch, and never by Jesus to describe His church. He actually instructed His apostles, as He was establishing His church, to tell no one that He was Jesus the Christ. He was the Son of Man and the Son of God. Was Jesus’ intention in this instruction to not be identified as the Messiah of the Jews, in the limited category of being a national Savior for the people, Israel, as they understood the nation at that time? Was it possible He knew the minds of the Israelite people that saw their nation as an exclusive one, never having understood the broader nature of Israel, and the broader plan that God had for His people?
Israel was and always had been a religious people with an inward focus. They wanted a literal interpretation of Israel, the nation, rather than any spiritual connotation of it. They wanted an earthly kingdom rather than a heavenly Kingdom, and they were blind to the living, throbbing church that would be born out of the nation. This would be the true Jew, a spiritual Jew that could only come to God by coming through the cross. There, by belief rather than by bloodline, he would either get stuck in front of the stumbling block, or would believe and go on into the Kingdom of God as a true Jew, believing on a rock foundation for his salvation to become part of God’s portion, Israel. Israel becomes the twelve tribes, or nations according to the spiritual blessings of Jacob upon them, bearing the rewards that fit the choices we make here on earth, our wilderness testing ground.
The apostles originally went out and preached in synagogues to the Jews and gentile believers, but upon rejection, like that of Jesus by the synagogue Pharisees, they went into the gentile world. They were not buildings and systems, but a living, moving church, able to move out as God directed. They did not amass money for building funds, but rather worked for their keep such as Paul did as a tent maker, which took time from their ministry. Paul describes the early church that refused to get locked into the religious system of synagogue in 1 Thessalonians. They were bold in speaking the gospel of God when there was much conflict on the matter. There was no compromise, or uncleanness in them, but rather they were approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. If one is not commissioned by God to speak for Him, he should not attempt to do so, for it will come from self. The apostles did not speak as pleasing men, but rather pleasing God who tests the hearts, for such willingness. They did not use flattering words, or a cloak for covetousness. They did not seek glory from men. They were like gentle, nursing mothers, willing to impart their own lives for the sake of their children. They worked night and day so as not to be a burden to the people. No one could accuse them of being money grabbers. They behaved devoutly, justly and blamelessly, exhorting, comforting and charging those early believers for their sakes. They thanked God without ceasing. They were welcomed as preachers of, not the word of men, but of the Word of truth.
The early believers from among the Greeks and Romans suffered the same persecutions from their countrymen, as did the apostles from the Jews, or Israelites, who had killed Jesus and the prophets before them. The Jews forbade the apostles to speak to the gentiles lest they be saved along with the Jew or Israelite, which we would call today keeping the message of salvation exclusively for its own, and ignoring the call to go into all the world. You could call it works within the exclusivity of the church denominational doctrines versus acts of the open church.
Is there any sign of this apostolic church in the institutions called Christianity? Do we see pastors and preachers and priests more concerned with building their ministries than being nursing mothers? Do we see a priesthood that is a sexual menace to our children? Do we see army chaplains, commanded not to use the name of Jesus lest they offend, appearing more anxious to please the followers of cults than to please God? Do we see a church speaking boldly before governments of liberalism? Do we see a church that is defender of the faith in the classrooms? Do we see ministries giving more time to their concerns for money and fundraisers than they do to raising the name of Jesus? Do we see a church perched on the edge of a One World Religious Order ready, willing, and just waiting to jump in on all fours, sacrificing the name of Jesus to be part of the greatest man-made concoction of religion that Satan ever dreamed up?
Truth will always run in opposition to religion. Religion is Satan’s opiate of the people, and it is rebellion to the truth of God. Witchcraft is its name. The institutional church called Christianity is being fanned by witchcraft. The true apostolic church, hidden within her borders, must come out. Now is the time for the Spirit and the bride to make the last call, as the woman begins to birth the true man child who will rule and reign with Jesus. Now is the time of the bride, the pillars on the apostolic foundation, the rock foundation that has the apostolic name with Jesus, the Son of God, written on the chief cornerstone. No other name under the sun can bear the name of the true church, nor can religion replace the truth of the Bible. Christianity never was, and never will be, a substitute for truth, nor is it synonymous with the name of church. Christianity is a religion, nothing more and nothing less.
The bride, the church, finds herself in the same place in Christianity that Jesus was in Judaism. Jesus had the system of temple Pharisees and Scribes against Him from the start. The Jews put him to death. He had a new message and a new covenant, which really was nothing more than the old taking a change of direction at the crossroads of Jewry and the Covenant Way, where the crossover must be made. The bride has a new message, yet it is the same one that Jesus gave. Jesus called His own out, His apostolic church. Now the bride must call the same church out of Christianity to be seen as the voice of truth, not religion. Some will hear, some will try to kill her, but, like Elijah, she comes with the message that requires the true church to make a choice. She must come out of the system and back to the Lord and His law or remain under the control of the false prophets of Jezebel. We all know what happened to Jezebel, and her false prophets.
Now is the time for the showdown between the woman birthing and the harlot, Babylon the Great – mother of religion in rebellion to God, known as witchcraft. Now is the time for God to bring forth a bride for His Son, a true son or daughter to rule and reign with Him, which has been the purpose of history. It is His story, the story of the Son and His bride, the true church, and the brothers of the tribes of Israel. It is a story of separation from the world, of crossover blessings, but in the final analyses, it is the story of two sticks coming together to be one as the nations of the saved. It is about a New Jerusalem coming down to join up with a new Israel and a new earth. This is God’s portion; this is God’s people.