As the Lord is going on, we need to be clear about the nature, position, and function of the church as well as the history of the church. Then we will know where we are. The revelation in the New Testament concerning the church is clear.
The church is produced by Christ becoming life to us. Christ came as God incarnate, lived on the earth for thirty-three and a half years, and died on the cross to take care of all the problems and to release the divine life, producing the church. He died as the Lamb of God to take away our sins, accomplishing a full redemption for us, and also as a grain of wheat, releasing the divine life within Him to produce many grains in resurrection (John 1:29; 12:24). As the grain of wheat, Christ died and resurrected to release the divine life into all His believers, making them, as many grains, the same as He is. He was once the only grain, but through His death and resurrection He was multiplied to become many grains. These many grains constitute the church. The church is a constitution of Christ, the produce of Christ, Christ’s multiplication.
On the day of Pentecost the believers were baptized into the Spirit (Acts 2:4). The Triune God was within them, and they were in the Triune God. At that time they became the church, which is the Body of Christ, the fullness of the One who fills all in all, to be a corporate expression of God in Christ on earth (Eph. 1:22-23). However, this glorious situation did not last long. The New Testament shows that near the end of the first century, while some of the apostles were still on the earth, religion had subtly crept into the church. For instance, Revelation 2:15 says that some held the teaching of the Nicolaitans. The word Nicolaitans is composed of two Greek words meaning “to conquer” and “the common people,” indicating that hierarchy had come in.
Church history confirms that at the end of the first century a system of hierarchy began to creep into the church. In the New Testament the terms elder and bishop are synonyms and are used interchangeably. In Acts 20:17 Paul called for the elders; then in verse 28 he addressed them as overseers, or bishops. This proves that the elders are the bishops. Elder mainly denotes the person, and bishop, or overseer, denotes the function of an elder. These two terms refer to the same person. In the New Testament there is no rank among the elders and overseers. However, at the end of the first century, Ignatius began to teach that the elders oversee one church and that the bishops oversee several churches, thus ranking the bishops above the elders.
Initially, the church had no organization but was purely an organic constitution of regenerated believers to be the Body of Christ for His expression. Then organization began to come in through hierarchy, which eventually expanded to include many levels. Hierarchy and organization kill the function of the members of the Body of Christ.
The hierarchy in the Catholic Church was fully established by A.D. 600. The hierarchy did not develop much in the first two centuries because the church was under the persecution of the Roman Empire. Nevertheless, the ranking of bishops above elders was the start. By A.D. 313 Constantine the Great accepted Christianity, and it eventually became the state religion. Thus, not only was the church free from persecution, but also thousands of unbelieving, unconverted, unrepentant Romans were brought into Christendom as prophesied by the parable of the tares in Matthew 13:24-30.
Originally, the church did not need organization because every member was living. Every member in our physical body is living and therefore functions as it should without needing to be told what to do. We do not need to give an order to our nose for it to smell something. Because we are living organisms and every member is living, every part of our body functions spontaneously. Only something lifeless, like a machine, needs organization. The unification of Christianity with the Roman Empire brought many dead ones into Christianity, creating the need for organization. Due to the papacy and the hierarchical organization of the Catholic Church, the earth became increasingly dark. The Dark Ages lasted from the sixth to the eleventh century. Corrupted, darkened, evil organization prevailed until the Reformation began.