Now let us see the importance of the boundary of locality. Perhaps we first should look at history. We have seen that in the beginning the churches in the Bible were local. Later, these churches were united to form provincial or district churches. Still later, they were united into an international church under the pope. When the churches were harmonious with God’s purpose in the beginning, they were local. Gradually, however, they degraded until there was only one church in the whole world, the Roman Catholic Church. During the Reformation, the Roman Catholic Church was broken up. In this breaking apart, the original local churches were not restored. Subsequent to this breaking apart, the international church became national churches with state churches in different nations. There was some improvement, some advancement, at this stage, with the churches being somewhat closer to the likeness of those in the beginning. The state churches later became independent churches. Within a nation, there were scores, hundreds, and even thousands of small churches. These independent churches took another step closer to the situation in the beginning.
We must realize how difficult it was for these independent churches to be established. For example, the church in many nations insisted that sermons could only be preached in holy places. These holy places were the dedicated sanctuaries. John Wesley rose up and said that preaching could be done anywhere. He was greatly persecuted! The state church declared that messages preached in undedicated places were defiled. In addition to the place being dedicated, the person preaching the message had to be ordained; no ordinary person was allowed to preach. This is the reason Darby said that Paul, Peter, and John could not have preached according to this view, because they were not ordained. For the state churches, preaching was serious, location was serious, and setting up new churches was even more serious. Even Luther, during the Reformation, dared not establish a church. It was the political power that forced him to do so. Nevertheless, after Wesley was raised up, the climate gradually changed as independent churches were established. The international church had evolved into national churches, and the national churches had evolved into independent churches.
Among these independent churches, a doctrine that became quite prevalent was the so-called congregationalism, which means that every independent congregation is a church. Who believed in congregationalism? It was the Congregationalists and the Baptists. What is meant by congregationalism? Many children of God among them in their reading of the Bible saw that the churches were all independent of one another. The church in Jerusalem had its own administration, the church in Antioch took care of its own affairs, and the church in Corinth, as well as the church in Ephesus, also had its own administration. Although the church was universal, they thought that each congregation was the unit of church administration. Hence, it was called “congregationalism.” They set up congregational churches with each congregation serving as a church. There was no archbishop above them. Compared with the other independent churches, this was an improvement. Now we see progress in these various stages; the international church improved to become national churches, national churches improved to become independent churches, and some independent churches improved to become congregational churches.
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