The third item that has damaged the church throughout its history is organization. This damaging and corrupting element began to appear in the second century, largely through the influence of a certain spiritual leader, Ignatius, who taught that bishops were different from elders. According to the Scriptures, however, elders and bishops refer to the same people. The term elder denotes the person, whereas the term bishop, or overseer, denotes the function. In the New Testament the elders oversee the various aspects of the church life. The teaching that bishops are above elders prepared the way for the development of a hierarchy, with an elaborate organization that included bishops, archbishops, cardinals, and the pope. The result was that the Holy Spirit was given no place in the so-called church. In order for organization to be maintained, there is the need for regulations, forms, and rituals. This is the reason these things have been prevailing in the so-called church.
Religion, knowledge, and organization have surely damaged the church. Even nominal Christians have some form of religion, although they have no experience of the living Christ. Furthermore, nearly all Christians, whether genuine believers or false professors, have some knowledge of doctrine. Moreover, organization abounds in today’s Christianity. But very few Christians know the life-giving Spirit or the reality of the Body of Christ. It seems that the lexicon used by most Christians does not include these terms, but includes only terms related to religion, knowledge, organization, regulations, forms, and rituals.
Praise the Lord that we have escaped from all this! If we are clear about the factors that have damaged and corrupted the church, we shall be kept from taking the old way of Christianity. We shall give no place to religion, the tree of knowledge, or organization.
In the church life in the Lord’s recovery we are not for organization with its emphasis on position or rank. It is not wrong to speak of elders and deacons. However, in the book of Revelation there is no mention of these terms. This book speaks, on the contrary, of the seven Spirits, the sevenfold intensified Spirit that deals with the fallen, degraded church. We are not for doctrines, rituals, or rank—we are for the sevenfold Spirit. Everything apart from this all-inclusive Spirit is dung (Phil. 3:8).
Recently, in a time of fellowship with the Lord, I had the sense that I was immersed in the Spirit. Inwardly I was filled with the Spirit, and outwardly I was clothed with Him. The church life consists in the corporate experience of the mingled Spirit, not in religion, doctrine, or organization with its titles, ranks, and positions. Like Paul in Philippians 3, we count as dung everything other than Christ, who is the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit.
Before the Lord, I know what my burden is today. I am not interested in teaching the saints. My burden is that we all be “wrecked” for Christ and the church, and that we be unloaded of the old things of Christianity. In the Lord’s recovery we must go all the way back to the beginning, where there was the eating of the tree of life. In the beginning there was just the Word to feed us; there was no religion, no tree of knowledge, and no organization. How we need to be unloaded of these three devilish factors of corruption and damage in the church! By the Lord’s mercy, many of us have been unloaded, and others are being unloaded meeting after meeting. As I contact the saints, I realize that many have been fully released from religion, knowledge, and organization. Because we have been unloaded and released, we can be living and aggressive for Christ and the church wherever we may go. Having been unloaded, we are one, and we have brotherly love not as a doctrine, but as a reality.
Sometimes people ask us if we speak in tongues or if we exercise the gifts of the Spirit. We can testify that we are filled, saturated, and possessed by the Spirit. In this experience of the Spirit we have the church life.
May we all be deeply impressed that the church life has nothing to do with religion, knowledge, or organization. In the church there is no room for regulations, forms, or rituals. We do not care even for the knowledge of the Bible in mere letters. To us, every word of the Bible must be spirit and life (John 6:63). Then the church will be living and preserved in the oneness. The life-giving Spirit is our oneness. Everything we need for the church life is in the all-inclusive Spirit. As we come to the Holy Word, we need to exercise our spirit to pray. Then the Word will become the Spirit in our experience, and we shall have the genuine and proper church life. As long as we have the church life, we have everything: salvation, redemption, sanctification, the overcoming life, the rapture, and the kingdom. In the church life everything in time and eternity is ours.