The single, clearest indicator of one’s inclusion in Christ’s body, the way by which we are known as true believers, is not institutional affiliation or doctrinal purity – it is our love for our fellow brothers and sisters.
“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:35
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.” Matthew 23:27
What Love Isn’t
Before we can discuss what this “love” means contextually and ecclesiologically we must first observe what it does not mean. Love here does not mean, as our society has truncated love, a kind of radical acceptance. Love does not merely accept – it seeks the positive and persistent good for the other often at the expense of the self. Love applies a wisdom of action, passive when it should be and active when it should be. Christ is the primary and full picture of love, the one who laid down His life for His bride and took it up again for her. He also continues to intercede on her behalf and to empower her to His works and glory. Everything Christ did and does, He did for the good of His people and for His glory. There was no exchange or offer we could have made, and we add nothing to Him. Love is like that. It allows for nothing at all to seek to harm or destroy its beloved. “It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” (1 Corinthians 13:7)
This text also does not say that His disciples will be known by their love for those outside the faith, or some distant stranger, or even an unbelieving neighbor. It says you will be known “if you love one another.” There is a primacy of affection that must be maintained and cultivated for the people of God. The greatest draw of the Christian life is not its buildings, its structures, its wealth, its political power – it is its deeply familial love for one another. To be Christian is to be unified by bonds deeper than mortal blood. It is to be bound by the immortal blood of Christ. To be Christian is to be of one body with Christ Himself and all His people. It is a radical organic unity of mutual aid and love and grace and glory and deep beauty that is visible not in the majesty of its architecture but in the relationships between its members.
“Oh but does that mean I must hate or ignore my neighbor?” No, of course not, but we don’t show the church as a family worth joining when we treat those outside better than we treat those within. Would you want to be a part of a family where the father fed the neighbor kids while his own children went hungry? That’s not kindness, it’s wickedness. For as Paul tells Timothy “if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” (1 Timothy 5:8)
The mystical union of Christ with His Bride is not to be understood, however, as a mystical union of Christ and a human institution, be it Catholic, Orthodox, Presbyterian, or any other “affiliation.” We are members of one another by Christ and His Spirit in accordance with His Word. We are members in community, absolutely, that is to say that we must be part of a local church. Yet that local church need not be affiliated with any national denomination or “sect.” Rather, it is a church and connected to Christ by its adherence to Christ through His Word – which is the Apostolic authority which ever bears witness to Him. It is telling that the central figure of Ancient Near eastern worship was typically an idol or an image, but in the case of Moses and the Tabernacle – the central figure is the tablets of the law written and kept in the Ark of the Covenant. It is not by sight but by hearing – that we truly learn to draw near to the Lord of Glory. God’s voice speaks from the emptiness between the cherubim above the mercy seat, invisibly but audibly. And the chief visual image we are to use in order to serve Christ is our fellow image-bearers the humans of His Kingdom.
Decentralized Ecclesiology – Mission Command
How do we know we are a part of the church though if we do not have some overarching bureaucratic structure? Without hierarchy what are we to do? Well, we may look to an odd place, the military concept of mission command, to help us here. What Christ gives His disciples in the Great Commission of Matthew 28, and by extension the whole Church (that is any who are in accordance with His Word and connected to a local body of those under tutelage of the Word), is what anyone with a military background may rightly recognize as “mission type orders” with clear commander’s Intent and guidance for the war at hand.
Mission type orders define a mission and broad strokes of how to accomplish it, but grant to subordinate commanders immense flexibility in how they are to accomplish this. Additionally, the Lord includes what few if any modern military commanders include in their own orders – He gives His promise of perpetual presence and provision for the work at hand saying “…and behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:10)
This is a great promise indeed, as The True Church has far more in common with decentralized terrorist organizational structures than with any so-called “high church” hierarchy. It has a decentralized structure, necessarily so, for it is the true light and resistance in a world owned and ruled by the devil and his minions. The “prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience,” (Eph 2:2) is very much still at work. The True Church is an insurgency, and has always been thus. Persecution pushed the earliest Christians underground within mere decades of the resurrection of Christ, forcing familial and nodal network structures of relationships still built around a central series of beliefs and familial affection.
A certain kind of eschatology may see institutional churches as prepared to rid the world of violence and to become the prime power, but this too is part of the Enemy’s plan – for when the Christians are working in their a-structural methods, they are almost impossible to assault en-masse because they do not mass at all. When, instead, Christians begin to gather in bureaucratic structures, the enemy has a field day with infiltrations and assaults. Have we not seen this to be the case throughout history? Have we not seen leaders in every major branch of Christianity in horrible sin, popes, bishops, pastors, presbyters. We are a fallen race, but some of this we have positioned ourself for, but trying to offload our trust to institutions instead of wrestling with the Word.
If you haven’t read Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 you need to do just that to understand one of the major methods of the adversary of your soul – create Catch-22s. Maybe you have heard the phrase, but this is the basis in the book.
“There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.
“That’s some catch, that Catch-22,” he observed.
“It’s the best there is,” Doc Daneeka agreed.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22
A Catch-22 is only really possible in the false structures of a bureaucracy, the Devil’s playground. But he can just as easily create a different kind of false-Catch-22, where we think all the options are bad. The early Church might have seen the freedom of what the West has now and drooled at the possibilities. They might even ask “What might we have done with such freedom?” Yet, like Abbe Faria of The Count of Monte Cristo they are likely wise enough to realize the answer: “Possibly nothing at all; the overflow of my brain would probably, in a state of freedom, have evaporated in a thousand follies…”
And is this not true of so much of the affluent world? Have our faculties not evaporated in a thousand follies and distractions? Well distractions are excellent ways of disarming opponents on the battlefield.
America learned just how exceptionally difficult combatting insurgency really is through the last twenty years of wars in the Middle East. Laurence of Arabia learned and taught it a century earlier, and our own Revolution was built on the concept in large part. The “battle” of Lexington and Concord is far more a use of hit and run tactics. A decentralized nodal network is extraordinarily difficult to disarm and defeat – for they need not defeat you in return. The insurgent only needs to survive, outlive you, and continue converting others to their cause. On the other hand, undermining and destroying a bureaucratic organization is much easier – in fact it normally undermines itself, as all evil is ultimately self-defeating and unsustainable.
This is a very old problem. The ancient Israelites were supposed to have God for their king, but they cried out for a human king in order to be like the surrounding nations. We know just how disastrous such a thing was, as even the best of the kings was a wild failure. David murdered his own man and stole his wife, mis-managed his sons to devastating degree, and Solomon was led astray by his many wives. Any attempt to replace God as the king, as the head, ends in failure. Yet, God kept for Himself a remnant – always He kept a remnant, who were His true people even amid the Baal and Asherim and many other kinds of worshipful abominations. The prophets often lived far apart from the people, since they were hunted by the ruling powers (like Elijah and the threats from Jezebel), Yet, the prophets survived to preach to the people because the Lord kept them, but it was a rare day indeed for their to be a ruling power that was truly for the Lord.
And now, we have an inverted rejection of Christ – for though our True King sits enthroned in heaven, we elevate human institutions to the highest authority instead of the Words of Christ, and indeed Christ himself. Why do we do this? In many ways, likely because it is easier than digging into His Word and being truly committed to living well in the family of the local church. It is easier to wax eloquent about organizational affiliation which requires nothing of us than to be truly devoted to the family of Christ which is directly within our reach and has needs and problems; hunger, thirst, shelter, emotional baggage, confusion, and miscommunications.
From a military vantage, one of the primary ways of combatting de-centralized extremist groups is actually pitting them against each other, or using their own values against them. A truly beautiful desire for unity can be exploited into a consolidation of power (which often gives the appearance of unity without its substance). A desire for growth of the Christian community can be exploited into unwieldy bureaucracies when the local church grows out of the capacity of its local elders. Ideally, just like an insurgency, then the local chapter must appoint elders and split into smaller groups again, not to cease their fellowship in the truest sense, but to protect the familial love of the people within the body, drawing people together.
A good span of control for elders requires more shepherds for more sheep, not the consolidation of more sheep under a single shepherd. This allows for all the sheep to be fed, and for the shepherd to do his duty well and faithfully. Without it, it is like expanding a sheepfold by many thousands for a single shepherd. How is he possibly to protect them all from the wolves? Now we have a real problem in that the number of men in the church is itself small, and the number of us who are qualified for eldership by the standards of Timothy and Titus is even smaller. More men need to be aspiring to the qualifications of eldership, even if they never take the specific role within their church.
Do you yet see the Catch-22 which the Devil has crafted for the downfall of the Church? It is age old, and we ought to recognize it by now. On the one side we are tempted to overemphasize the institutions and so create a cesspool of madness, and on the other to entirely disintegrate into atomistic one-on-one relationships with God devoid of connection to a local church.
Over-realized Eschatology and the Association with Sin
My whole PhD pursuit was ignited by the recognition (perhaps banal but true) that we are not driven by ideas so much as loves, not intellect but affection, and what we seem to love is the ease and low cost of “membership” in an abstract, intellectualized church denomination as opposed to the great demands of actually living with and loving those who are in our local church. We seem to love being right more than listening. We love knowledge more than wisdom. We love organizations instead of people. We love the praise and honor of men more than the praise of God.
It is, in some ways, a noble thing to wish that the world would make visible what is true and invisible in the Spiritual Kingdom of God – but we ought not try to rush the Lord. We cannot despair of doing good because we do not yet see the visible manifestations that we wish to see. I wonder to what degree it really is simply impatience that makes us wish for the outward dominance of the Kingdom of God, without realizing that it is only hearts changed at a local, yes even familial, level which will bring any lasting change anywhere else. An institutional church can (and does) drift into all kinds of problems in a way that smaller, localized churches are guarded against by their nearer bonds of love.
When we split churches over stupid things, we separate families over stupid things. Then again, is it any wonder when we have such an embarrassing perspective of divorce and remarriage in even “Christian” circles? (But that is a topic for another time).
When we deny our familial ties with fellow believers over foolish trifles we also neglect those whom Jesus has purchased by His precious blood. How then do I know who is a member of the Church of Christ? Is it by some vow to a national denomination? Unlikely. Is it by a list of doctrinal beliefs and ethical assumptions? Closer. Is it by the way in which we love one another? Bingo.
So, of any talk of schism or anything else, we must consider two questions. First – who is actually our brother? Second – are we loving our brother in this approach?
To bring this to something eminently practical, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5:9-13
“I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church[b] whom you are to judge? God judges[c] those outside. ‘Purge the evil person from among you.’”
While it may seem noble to take some kind of high road and say you will reform a fallen denomination, Paul here makes clear that we are not to even associate with anyone who bears the name “brother” if he is guilty (and unrepentant) of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler – not even to eat with such a one. Now one might argue that this is a picture of excommunication and is only exercised by elders, but Paul is not writing 1 Corinthians primarily to elders. He is writing to the whole church. He has his epistles directing elders, but this is a command for all members of the church to take part in the concept of excommunication which is two-fold and bi-directional. If an elder is in sexual immorality, claiming to be a brother, it is not only right it is necessary that they come away from him (unless and until such time of his repentance). The other elders are critical in this process as well.
On the flip side, if there is a member within the church who is the same, it is necessary that the whole church be engaged in separating from him so that the force of his exile from the community may actually lead him to repentance (which is ever the true hope of excommunication). In either case, it is clear, that sexual immorality, as well as a whole litany of sins are in view for separating from those who call themselves brothers. This separation is not commanded for those who are of the world, for they are merely acting according to their nature, and then, as Paul says, we would have to leave the world. Yet, from people who claim Christ and yet demonstrate these sins we are to flee, we are not even to associate with them.
I think this is really for two reasons.
First – by continued association with “believers” in blatant, unrepentant sin we give implicit consent and legitimacy to their sin – which is the most unloving and damaging thing we could do since sin, definitionally, leads to death.
Second – by continued association with those who clearly violate the law and purposes of God, yet claim to be among us, we give external legitimacy to their sin and so lie to the surrounding culture, defaming the name of God and the gospel of Christ.
What does Love Actually look Like?
I started this speaking of love, and how we ought to love one another. Here, for clarity, we ought to perhaps consider what it actually looks like to love one another, so as to make it clear over and against the cultural connotation of love as “mere acceptance.”
There are three essential principles I think we can bin most of love under in the Christian context – Encourage, Exhort, and Rebuke.
I have a, perhaps simplistic, but hopefully helpful way of delineating between these three modes of love.
Encourage means to “support a brother or sister in good work they are already doing.”
Exhort means to “challenge a brother or sister to begin a good work they ought to do.”
Rebuke means to “correct and admonish a brother or sister to stop doing a work they ought not do.”
If you are already deeply in prayer and study of the word, I might encourage you to “continue with all your strength, persevere, do not flag, but press forward.”
If you do not pray at all, I will exhort you to “pray all the more, in fact pray without ceasing.” If you never read your Bible, I will exhort you to “open it and read, be transformed by it.”
If you are reading your Bible with poor method and twisting it, or are not submitted to a local assembly, to elders as fathers and teachers, I ought to rebuke you, “It is not to be read in that manner,” and then exhort you to read it in a different way, “here is how it ought be read instead.”
Rebukes often, but not always, are followed with exhortations in scripture. Ephesians 4:28-29 provides two such examples,
“Let the thief no longer steal [rebuke], but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need [exhortation]. 29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths [rebuke], but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear [exhortation].” (Brackets mine for clarity)
Similarly, exhortations also often include reasons like the Ephesians passage above. The exhortation to do this or that thing is often accompanied with the why. Speak such as is good for building up so that it may give grace to those who hear. Do this, for this purpose.
Rebukes, on the other hand, less often seem to include the explanatory element. Though rebuke almost always has to do with sin, so even where a reason is not supplied, we know from James, that all sin leads to death. What further reason do we need not to do a thing than that it is deadly? It is only a fool who resists the rebuke to take his hand back from a viper’s strike unless someone explain to him, in chemical detail, what the venom will do to his blood. It is enough to say, “STOP!” or even to grasp his hand and pull him away from the viper’s bite. All sin, yes all sin is deadlier than the deadliest of viper’s. It seeks not only to destroy your body, but your soul and the souls of those you love.
A right understanding of these three modes of loving our brother can be extraordinarily helpful for interactions with them, and even with ourselves. When we have done well, it is sometimes difficult to continue, for we are tired or concerned, or even do not seem to see the blessing of the thing well done – we have desperate need for encouragement in this regard. How many pastors are bombarded with corrections and questions after their sermons but rarely hear a thankful word? A right loving of a brother will recognize where there is space for encouragement, even if there is a place for rebuke as well.
Localized Ecclesiology: How to Encourage, Exhort, and Rebuke
Distance and connection matters to this, and this is why I say that no centralized church hierarchy can really properly function in this regard, for some distant bishop cannot know you and come speak directly to you, nor you to him. It is those nearest us that we must spend our love upon, and serve in these ways. The analogy of the light of the world, which Christ uses, might be here helpful. Remember, there is no real concept of a light without fire in the ancient world – which means any reference to light is also a direct reference, in the minds of the hearers, to heat. Being a light of the world is not merely illuminatory, it is also warming. Yet while light may carry great distances, the warmth that brings life, heat when we are cold (exhortation and encouragement), and rebuke to remove deadly impurities (like the cooking of food – rebuke) requires intimate nearness. In fact, the absolute nearest requirement is for the rebuke, closest in proximity to the heat.
Interestingly enough, we often get the application of these things inverted, however. For instance, we tend to beat around the bush with rebukes for our concern for the other’s feelings. This is rightly a desire not to wound our brother (and we ought not seek to wound our brothers), yet, just like a surgeon ought not take some wandering path to cut out a tumor, but rather the most direct route, we must be so with rebuke. Rebuke is almost always an issue with sin, and sin brings death. We do our loved ones no favors by letting the blade of truth wander on its way to the source of the problem – rather, like a wayward surgeon, we are more likely to create greater harm.
Hence, rebuke should be simple, straightforward, and eminently clear. Do not bear false witness, do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not make images of God or of any god to worship them. The moral law is simple and direct. If we seek to wander our way to these truths we undermine God and create confusion where He has sought to create clarity. This is most potent, nearest the flame, nearest the source. You need great elders and brothers and sisters immediately near you for this life-giving rebuke.
Encouragement and Exhortation may come by both direct and indirect means. I can encourage you with a hearty “good job” which seeks to support you by drawing up from your own reserves of strength, or I can be an encouragement by helping you literally bear the burden the Lord has given you. Exodus 17 gives the story of the Israelites battles with the Amalekites and says, starting in verse 11 through 13,
“Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses’ hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side. So his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. And Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his people with the sword.”
The perseverance required of the faithful often demands the sharing of burdens between believers – this is a form of encouragement – literally the giving of courage or the giving of strength. This I cannot really do from afar.
Another picture of this encouragement is in the Angel who comes to feed and strengthen Elijah after the events with the priests of Baal on Mount Carmel. Another, in our own failures, is the way which Jesus encourages Peter after his denials, giving Peter the opportunity to reassert his love and devotion to Christ face to face. Christ also heals many, which also might be a way of thinking about encouragement in a more literal sense.
Often an encouragement is the follow-on to an exhortation or the preamble to it. In Elijah’s case, the literal giving of food for strength is the preamble to the movement to come – it is the gathering of strength for a work that is yet to be done. This is relatively rare in Scripture, I think because it eschews faith to some degree. More common is the exhortation preceding the encouragement or empowerment.
Genesis 12 begins, “Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.’”
Abram is 75 years old when this occurs, and while he is wealthy by worldly standards, that, in some ways, is more a hindrance than a benefit at a time when wealth meant many flocks to feed, not mere digits on a computer screen. Yet the Lord does not say, “here is all the strength you will need, and a direct, turn-by-turn route.” Rather, the Lord tells Abram to go and promises to show him the land. Trusting God is living on His promises, so we often see this as the case in exhortation. The call to action precedes the empowerment or clarity to achieve the desired end.
Yet all of these things require the presence of the one doing the encouragement, exhortation, or rebuke. This we lose in our attempts to distance ourselves from the localized church. So how present are you to love your brothers and sisters and to be loved by them?
