In the first installment of this article, we noted Jesus' promise to the apostles that He would build a church, and we set out to find the structure of this church. We noted that the word "church" in the Bible simply indicates an assembly or group of people. We further noted that each person in this group is a priest, with Jesus Himself being the High Priest...

     But, what about the tabernacle, or temple, of which Jesus is the Minister? We have noted the fulfillment of the incense, the lamps, the animal sacrifices, and the priesthood, but we have not yet looked for the spiritual temple. The copy of it began as an elaborate tent, which was replaced by a magnificent building: but what is the true tabernacle which the Lord erected, and not man?. What is the spiritual "building" of which Jesus is Minister? Look at what the apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth:

For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said, "I will dwell among them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they shall be My people." (IICorinthians 6:16)

     The apostle Peter sheds further light on this subject in his first epistle:

Coming to [Christ] as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. (IPeter 2:4-5)

Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:19-22)

     Let us now consider the two images together. In the one, the people of God are described as priests, with Jesus as High Priest. In the other, the people of God are stones in God's spiritual temple, with Jesus being the primary foundation stone. When we contemplate these images, we see working together, sharing of burdens, and unity of purpose among Jesus and His people. All of this implies an intimacy, a closeness: all the stones are part of the same building, and all the priests are serving in the same temple. With these thoughts in mind, let us next look at yet one more illustration of the church's structure:

And He put all things under [Christ's] feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. (Ephesians 1:22-23)

     Just as every member of the human body is directed by the head, so also in the body of Christ. Any member who is not careful to take all of his directions from the Head is in serious danger:

Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God. (Colossians 2:18-19)

     So then, membership - i.e. fellowship - in Christ's church has nothing to do with any visible human organization or man-made creeds. Fellowship in Christ is accomplished by individuals following His example, each of his own free will:

This is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin (IJohn 1:5-7).

"If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love." (John 15:10)

...because "All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, and its flower falls away, but the word of the Lord endures forever." Now this is the word which by the gospel was preached to you. Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby (IPeter 1:24-2:2).

     All of this seems uncomfortable to many of us, for a variety of reasons. We may think that God should have given us the responsibility and the authority to create some kind of organization or creed to "protect" His people. The idea that each individual is responsible for his own relationship with God is downright scary to some. Nonetheless that is what scripture teaches, as Paul writes:

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His own good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12,13)

Nevertheless the solid foundation of God stands, having this seal: "The Lord knows those who are His," and, "Let everyone who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity." (IITimothy 2:19)

     Having said all of that, it remains for us to examine the structure within the local church. In this article, we have focused upon the church that is the body of Christ, without giving much attention to the workings of the various churches that meet and worship together in their respective locations. And, as individual members of Christ's body, we will want to know what He expects of us when we get together in groups. Christ has indeed given us a pattern for how the local church is to function, and we will look at this pattern in the next issue.

     Thomas Aquinas, the brilliant 13th century theologian, energetically involved himself in virtually every religious question of his day. Not surprisingly, many of the questions of his day were much the same as those raised today:

     "How do we come to know God?"
     "Why does God allow bad things to happen?"
     "How did the universe come to exist?"

Of course, the list of such questions is as seemingly endless today as it was in Aquinas' time. And Thomas attempted to answer the questions in an orderly and logical fashion, thereby producing an enormous body of writing. The best known of his works is the Summa Theologica. This work is actually a series of treatises on religious topics. Each treatise is organized as a series of Questions, and each Question is divided into a series of Articles. In each Article, Thomas considers viewpoints which oppose his own, presents his own arguments, and then answers the opposing views. His is a meticulously logical approach.

     The first part of the Summa Theologica is Aquinas' Treatise on God, and the second Question in this treatise is "The Existence of God". The third Article under this Question tackles what may be the most fundamental point of any kind of religious inquiry: "Whether God Exists?" If there is a God, then the direction of our reasonings about religion will be very different than if there is no God. If there is a God, then we need to find out what He has revealed to us about Himself. As for Thomas, he believed the existence of God to be a fact, and he presented a series of five proofs to demonstrate it. Personally, I find the fifth proof to be his most compelling, and this is the one which I now ask you to consider.

The fifth way is taken from the governance of things. We see that things which lack knowledge, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result.

Hence it is plain that they achieve their end not by chance, but by design.

Now whatever lacks knowledge cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence, as the arrow is directed by the archer.

Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are ordered to their end; and this being we call God.

The logic of this argument is inescapable. But Thomas Aquinas is by no means the first person to reason this out. Some twelve hundred years before Thomas, the apostle Paul wrote:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse (Romans 1:18-20).

     There are many ways to show the reasonableness of believing in the existence of an intelligent Creator without even appealing to a religious book (see "Where did the first cell come from?", July 1996 "Preach the Word"). In fact, when the evidence is carefully examined, it becomes clear that it is completely unreasonable to conclude that there is no God. Those who affirm that there is no God are basing their beliefs on an emotional reaction rather than any objective logic. Atheism, in short, is utterly irrational.

     Having come to the conviction that there is indeed a God, our next task is to apply ourselves to discovering what He has in mind for us. If you have not yet done so, I urge you now to give the Bible a chance to show whether it has a reasonable claim to being the word of the Creator. If you think that there may be a God, it is up to you to seek His will for you. And it is better to start today, for none of us is guaranteed a tomorrow.

     Six years ago, my wife and I attended something called a "Healing Explosion" at the Veterans' Memorial Auditorium in Providence. The auditorium was full of people who regarded themselves to be full of the Holy Spirit. When the husband-and-wife team who were in charge of the proceedings exhorted the audience to speak in "tongues", nearly everyone in the building began to loudly utter a series of noises which neither they themselves nor anybody else could understand. As you can well imagine, this produced quite a racket. Moreover, it was a confused racket, because no two individuals were making the same noises, though they were all making noises at the same time. Contrast that with this:
If anyone speaks in a tongue, let there be two or at the most three, each in turn, and let one interpret. But if there is no interpreter, let him keep silent in church, and let him speak to himself and to God. (ICorinthians 14:27-28)
The apostle Paul taught that, when Christians assemble together, the speaking in tongues must be orderly. Moreover, there must be an interpreter: which reminds us that, in the New Testament, the "tongues" were actual, verifiable languages (Acts 2:5-11). Why is so-called "speaking in tongues" so different today than it was in New Testament times?

     At this same "Healing Explosion" there were also some folks who had come to get healed of various physical ailments, many of them confined to wheelchairs. What happened to these people was truly sad. A small group called a "healing team" would gather around the handicapped person and "pray" over him. In many cases they bodily lifted the person out of his wheelchair and walked him around for a few moments, while simultaneously uttering their incantations. When the miracle-workers had finished, they would set the person back in his wheelchair and move on to their next hapless victim. Contrast that with this:
Then Peter said, "Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk." And he took him by the right hand and lifted him up, and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength. So he, leaping up, stood and walked and entered the temple with them - walking, leaping, and praising God. And all the people saw him walking and praising God. Then they knew that it was he who sat begging alms at the Beautiful Gate of the temple; and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him. (Acts 3:6-10)
Not only was the healing instantaneous, but everyone knew the man, and that he had been lame from birth - so it was objectively verifiable that something supernatural had occurred. So again the question is raised: Why are the so-called miracles of today so utterly unlike those described in the New Testament?

     To understand the answer to this question, it is necessary to first answer the question: What was the purpose of those supernatural manifestations of the Holy Spirit? Obviously, such gifts as prophecy, knowledge, wisdom, and discerning of spirits were given for the purpose of revelation. Remember, the New Testament was still being written, and God had determined that there would be people preaching and living the gospel. Therefore, He needed to reveal the message to them in some way apart from the scripture, and He chose to do it by means of these spiritual gifts.

     But what purpose was served by the gifts of healing, casting out demons, and speaking in tongues? Unlike those discussed above, these gifts did not reveal God's will: they must have had some other function. Indeed they did, and we will look at this function in our next issue. And based upon an understanding of the purposes of the spiritual gifts, we will be able to draw some conclusions as to why we do not see them in our time.