In today’s Protestantism there is also a disregard for Christ’s headship in His Body (Col. 1:18). In today’s Protestant churches there is hardly any teaching concerning the Body of Christ and concerning Christ as the Head of the Body. In our teachings throughout the years, we have strongly stressed the building up of the Body of Christ and the headship of Christ.
The Protestant churches annul the functions of the members in the Body of Christ. They maintain that to have one man speaking is better than to have all the saints function. They feel that having one man speaking keeps the meeting in a good order and ensures that a good word will be spoken to the attendants. They feel that a meeting left up to all the saints would end in chaos and confusion. By reading 1 Corinthians 14 we can see that Paul anticipated that the practice of all prophesying would not be so easy. This is why Paul charged them to do everything decently and in order (v. 40).
We like to be decent, but at the same time we do not like to be dead. Rather, we want to be living. I used to ask people, “What do you like better-Forest Lawn Cemetery or a playground?” A playground has very little order, but at Forest Lawn Cemetery everything is in order. We do not want to have church meetings that are like a cemetery. Our church meetings need to be very living. The book of Psalms encourages us to make a joyful noise to the Lord (Psa. 100:1). We need such a joyful noise in our church meetings.
In Protestantism most of the church meetings are kept for the service of the clergy, with nearly no meeting for the manifestation of the gifts of all the members of the Body for the organic building up of the Body of Christ in the unsearchable riches of Christ (cf. 1 Cor. 14:23a, 24, 26, 31, 3-5). Our meetings might be noisy, but out of the noise of all the saints the riches of Christ come out.
We overcome such a dead and dying religion by the pneumatic Christ in His resurrection and by the bountiful supply of the all-inclusive Spirit (Phil. 3:10; 1:19b). On the one hand, Christ is the Son of God. On the other hand, He is the life-giving Spirit. First Corinthians 15:45b says Christ as the last Adam in the flesh became a life-giving Spirit through His resurrection. Thus, today He is the pneumatic Christ. By Christ as the pneumatic One and by the bountiful supply of the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit, we can overcome today’s Protestantism.
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