In chapter one we saw from Ephesians 1 that the church is the issue of the dispensing of the divine Trinity. I stress this matter because not many of the Christians throughout the generations have entered into this realization. We may think that the church is just a collection, or a gathering, of all the believers as a kind of collective entity which can be considered as an organization. This is absolutely wrong. The concept of the church being an organization has led the Christians throughout the centuries into confusion, misunderstanding, and a deceived condition. Our burden today is to point out, according to the pure, divine revelation in the New Testament and especially in the book of Ephesians, that the issue of the dispensing of the divine Trinity is the church as an organism, the Body of Christ.
I hope that you would study our fellowship in chapter one in light of the first chapter of Ephesians. That fellowship can be a great help and an opener to your understanding of that portion of the Word. The main thing that Ephesians 1 shows us is the issue of the dispensing of the divine Trinity. Although the word issue is not in Ephesians 1, the fact and the reality of the issue is there. The divine Trinity issues out through His dispensing. In everything that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit accomplished are the dispensing of the Father, the dispensing of the Son, and the dispensing of the Spirit. These dispensings issue in one thing—an organism, the church, which is the Body of Christ.
A wooden stand is organized with pieces of wood, but a living person with a body is something organic. A robot is an organization of lifeless material, but a living person is an organism. The church should be an organism not an organization. The teaching of Ignatius in the second century gave the ground for organization to come into the church. Ignatius taught that an overseer, a bishop, is higher than an elder. But in Acts 20, Luke made it clear that the overseers and the elders are the same persons. Paul sent for the elders to come to him, and then he told them that the Holy Spirit had appointed them to be the overseers (vv. 17, 28). The elders are the overseers (see note 283 in Acts 20 and note 21 in 1 Timothy 3—Recovery Version). Due to the erroneous teaching of Ignatius, hierarchy came into the church. The episcopal system of ecclesiastical government comes from Ignatius's mistaken teaching as well as the entire hierarchical system of the Roman Catholic Church with the bishops, archbishops, cardinals, and the pope. The principle of hierarchy and organization is also among the Protestant denominations and the free groups. Today's Christianity is under the influence of this concept of hierarchy and has been corrupted by it. The teaching, practice, and concept of hierarchy has led many Christians away from the church as an organism to an organization. We were warned when we studied the history of the church in this matter, and Brother Nee helped us to realize that we had to be careful about the matter of organization. The Lord enlightened us to see that such an organizational system annuls the organic Body of Christ. In the Body of Christ, there is no organization. But the fallen and deformed Christianity is full of organization. It is a religious, organizational system.