The End of the Church Age...and After

    Why are so many pastors and church members reluctant to consider the idea that the church age has come to an end? We know that churches that came out of the Reformation, such as Reformed, Lutheran, and Presbyterian, hold the Roman Catholic teaching that the churches will continue until Christ returns. On the other hand, churches more Arminian in nature do not have a legacy from the Roman Catholic church but they also must face this problem.

    There are at least four verses that greatly contribute to this problem. These four verses have been interpreted by a great many churches in such a way that the pastors and therefore the local congregations, perhaps without even realizing this have taken upon themselves an enormous spiritual authority. It is an authority of such consequence that it is almost equal to the authority of God Himself. We will examine hose four verses and indicate how they are most frequently understood. Then we will show how they should be understood.

    The first verse we will examine is I Timothy 3:15:

But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.

    The important question concerning this verse is whether the phrase “the pillar and grounded the truth” is modifying the word “church” or the word “God.” Usually, it is taught that it modifies the word “church.” It is understood, therefore, that the local church is the pillar and ground of truth.

    This teaching can give the church the idea that it has great authority. This would be true if indeed the local church had become the foundation of truth. This understanding supports and is supported by the usual understandingly the second verse we will discuss, Matthew 16:19, wherein Christ declared to Peter as a representative of all the apostles and subsequently of all pastors, that he has been given the keys of the kingdom of God. Matthew 16:17 states:

And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

    Usually, the keys that were given are understood to be first the key of knowledge (Luke 11:52), which is the Bible by which the door is opened to salvation. There is also a second key which is the key to excommunicate, that is, to shut the door to heaven. By means of these keys, the rulers of the church are supposed to be able to open up the kingdom of God to those they believe have become saved, and to shuttle kingdom to those who give clear evidence they are not saved. It is understood that the consequence of these actions of the church is that God supports and sanctions the action of the church.

    Whatsoever is bound or loosed on earth shall be bound or loosed in heaven. This understanding of this verse is entirely compatible with the understanding that the church is the pillar and ground of truth.

    The third verse that helps to develop the concept that the local church has great spiritual authority is Ephesians 2:20:

And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;

    This verse is usually understood to mean that the rulers of the churches beginning with the apostles and prophets are the spiritual foundation of the local church. This verse, too, therefore, seems to be altogether in agreement with the previous concept that the church is the pillar and ground of truth and that the church rulers have been given the keys of the kingdom so that they open or shuttle door into the kingdom of God and the local church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets.

    The fourth verse that is important in this matter of church authority is Matthew 16:18 wherein Jesus declared:

And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gated of hell shall not prevail against it.

    The usual understanding of this verse is that the gates of hell relate to Satan’s kingdom. Thus, it is understood that the local church can never be overthrown by the action of Satan. Thus, without question, it is believed the churches under the protection of Christ will continue all the way to the end of the world.

    These four verses, when understood in the way we have just looked at them, give the local pastors, elders, and deacons great spiritual authority. True, God has given some rules to follow. There was to be water baptism, there was to be obedience to all the doctrines and practices held by the church,

there was to be a professional faith. If these rules were faithfully followed by any church member, the assumption is that there can be no doubt that the individual is eternally in the kingdom of God. Thus, the local church which is the external, visible representation of the kingdom of God is understood to be essentially identical to the eternal, invisible church. This would be true if indeed all of the members were truly saved.

    Likewise, the local congregation may be considered to be the bride of Christ inasmuch as it is believed that virtually all of the members are true believers. Therefore, little or no distinction is made between the eternal, invisible church and the external corporate church. In actuality, they are considered identical because all members of the local congregation are assumed to be saved.

    Thus, too, the Confessions or other doctrines held by the church must be considered by its members to be faithful to God’s desires. After all, isn’t the church the pillar and ground of truth.

    By means of this kind of understanding of these verses, the members of these churches are given vast assurance that they are safe and secure in the kingdom of God. As long as they faithfully follow the rules of the local church, they are assured by the rulers of these churches that they belong to Christ.

    With this understanding of these verses, it is completely understandable that the churches of our day recoil in horror at the idea that the church age has come to an end and the true believers are to depart out of the churches. To them it would be the equivalent of committing spiritual suicide. Moreover, what pastor is ready to surrender this huge spiritual authority that he believes God had given him at the time his fellow pastors laid hands on him as a sign that he was ordained by God to have this authority.

Is the Church the Pillar and Ground of Truth?

    We will now look at these four verses to discover what they are really teaching. The first verse we examined was I Timothy 3:15, which declares:

But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.

    Is the church the pillar and ground of the truth? Or is God the pillar and ground of the truth? If the church is the pillar and ground of truth, how can it be that one church holds the doctrine that Jesus died for everyone while another church teaches that Christ died only for the elect. How can one church teach baptism by immersion and another teaches baptism by sprinkling.

    Differences between church beliefs are concerned with a host of doctrines. So how can the church be the foundation of truth. Only God can be that foundation. The Bible says it very plainly in I Corinthians 3:11:

For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

    Under no circumstance can the church be the pillar and ground of truth. It is true that during the church age the believers were living stones in the temple (the churches). They will even be called a pillar in the eternal temple (Revelation 3:12), but they can never be the foundation of truth. Only Christ who is God can be the pillar and foundation of truth.

    Suppose I am a pastor, and I suspect that a doctrine our church or denomination holds is not altogether faithful to the Bible. My church theologians assure me this doctrine, about which I am concerned, is faithful to the Bible. After all, doesn’t the Bible teach in I Timothy 3:15, “the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.” Doesn’t God clearly teach in this verse that the church is the pillar and ground of truth? Isn’t that a sufficient teaching of the Bible to arrest any concerns I might have regarding faithfulness to God’s Word? This conclusion is widely held amongst churches. It produces the notion that if a church acts in solemn assembly concerning any doctrine, they can be sure the conclusions of this solemn assembly are altogether faithful to God’s desires.

    To further substantiate this notion, the council in Jerusalem, recorded in Acts 15, is frequently offered as an example of how God interacts with solemn

ecclesiastical assemblies. However, these theologians fail to realize that the council recorded in Acts was meeting at a time when God was still writing the Bible. To make sure we do not misunderstand, God records in Acts 15:28:

For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things;

    God is instructing us by this language that God the Holy Spirit was guiding this council so that what was concluded could become a part of God’s Word. This is so because God used this incidental a further means of producing the Bible. Holy men in this council in Jerusalem spoke as God the Holy Spirit moved them. This does not for a moment suggest that any time there is a solemn meeting of church pastors that the conclusions arrived at in that meeting are necessarily true to the Bible. Whether they are true or not must be tested by the Bible. The principle of Romans 3:4, “let God be true, but every man a liar,” must always be kept in mind.

    This wrong understanding of I Timothy 3:15 has set up a great many churches to neatly come out from being under the authority of the Bible. They have have set themselves up to be the authority that rules over the Bible.

    The corporate external church can never be the pillar and ground of truth. The foundation upon which truth is built is Jesus Christ. I Corinthians 3:11 declares:

For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

    The pillar and ground of truth cannot modify the word “church.” These words must modify the word “God.” The church of “God the pillar and ground of truth.” Christ is the Word, He is the truth. His name is True. How could it be that faulty sinful men meeting in some solemn ecclesiastical meeting can be the foundation of truth?

    But this audacious conclusion has served the churches so that many believe that their confessions, their particular church doctrines, are sacrosanct. Thus, as they preach, they feel secure in their faithfulness to God as long as they faithfully declare what their church doctrines and confessions teach. I am afraid that it is this kind of thinking that has fostered an intense lack of fear of God. After all, as long as we carefully follow the doctrines our church holds recognizing that the church is the pillar and ground of truth, then we know we are being faithful to all that God would have us believe. Unfortunately, and sadly, this attitude must be considered to be

dreadful arrogance and pride. No wonder God’s wrath has come against the churches. We could even wonder, “Why did God take so long to bring judgment on the churches.”

God Is Testing the Church

    Isn’t it interesting the way God has designed this verse, I Timothy 3:15? Remember, God is the author of the Bible. Holy men of old spoke as the Holy Spirit moved them. God could have phrased this verse so that there would be no question at all concerning who or what is the pillar and ground of the truth. But the way it is written allows either possibility. The church is the pillar and ground of the truth or God is the pillar and ground of the truth.

    We must remember that God has constantly set up testing programs. Adam and Eve were tested in the Garden of Eden. Abram was tested when he was told to sacrifice his son Isaac. Israel was tested when Moses remained on Mount Sinai for forty days. Jesus was tested for forty days immediately after He was baptized. Indeed, testing is an important aspect of God’s dealings with mankind.

    By this verse, the churches are being tested. Which conclusion will they adopt? If God is the pillar and ground of the truth, then the churches must remain very humble, looking only to the Bible as the authority. If the church is to be understood as the pillar and ground of truth, then the church has been given vast spiritual authority.

    A similar test is introduced in the Bible by a verse in I Peter 5. In this chapter, God gives instruction to the overseers of the congregation. He instructs them to feed the flock, that is, they are to carefully teach the congregation the truths of the Bible. God further instructs in I Peter 5, verse 3:

Neither as being lords over God’s heritage, but being ensamples to the flock.

    But then the Bible declares in verse 4:

And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that faders not away.

    Is this verse teaching that those who feed the flock will receive a special crown as a glorious reward for their work of shepherding the congregation? It would surely appear that this could be the situation. Nowhere else in the

    Bible does God speaker anyone receiving a crown of glory. All believers are given a crown of righteousness (II Timothy 4:8) and a crown of-life (James 1:12), but this passage is particularly speaking of the elders, those who have the spiritual oversight of the congregation. Doesn’t this agree with the statement of I Timothy 5:17, where we read:

Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine.

    Indeed, it would appear that pastors have a special relationship with God. When these verses are tied into Ephesians 2:20, for example, which appears to teach that the foundation of the house of God is the apostles and prophets, it is very easy to come to the conclusion that pastors have a great spiritual authority, even as those who contend that the church is the pillar and ground of the truth have taken on a great spiritual authority.

    Furthermore, this makes the office of the pastor exciting and wonderful. Throughout eternity future, they, and only they, will wear the special crown of glory.

    But there is another side to this test. Do the foregoing conclusions agree with the immediate context in which this statement of the crown of glory is found? Doesn’t the previous verse teach that these shepherds are to be examples? And isn’t the supreme and most trustworthy example we are to follow Christ Himself? Doesn’t He say in Matthew 11:29:

Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

    Wasn’t Moses a great type of Christ and don’t we read of him in Numbers 12:3:

Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.

    How do these statements correlate with the idea of special glory to the pastor? True, he is to be honored, that is, respected as a servant of God, but this in no sense gives him special spiritual authority. The only spiritual authority is the Bible.

    Moreover, the Bible neatly puts to rest any grandiose ideas of some special glory that awaits pastors in eternity future. In Luke 17:10, God lays down this principle:

So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.

    As if that is not enough, in Luke 18:28-30, God makes sure we understand that all future blessings are encompassed in the fact that we have been given eternal life. We read in this passage:

Then Peter said, Lo, we have left all, and followed thee. And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of God’s sake, Who shall not receive manifold more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting.

    How interesting and significant that it is the Apostle Peter who is concerned about this subject. If any of the apostles were singled out for special recognition, it was Peter. Therefore, we can be certain that the principle God is stating in these verses applies to every believer, regardless of what their task might be.

    And what is the principle that God set forth? In this life, we will receive many blessings as we serve God in the kingdom of God, but in eternity future, we receive eternal life.

    But eternal life is given by God’s grace to each and every believer. Every blessing of salvation is included in the gift of eternal life. Therefore, the crown of glory is included in the gift of eternal life. Thus, we can be sure that every true believer is given a crown of glory.

    Therefore, if a pastor concludes on the basis of I Peter 5:4 that he has some spiritual authority, he has failed the test. He has failed the test just like those who believe the church is the pillar and ground of the truth have failed the test.

    That brings us to the second passage, Ephesians 2:20, 21:

And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord:

    The apostles and prophets cannot be the foundation of the holy temple. The foundation of the apostles and prophets is the Word of God, Jesus Christ being the chief corner stone. As a matter of fact, Jesus is the Word

that became flesh and dwelt among us. Thus, Christ is the foundation even as we learned from I Corinthians 3:11. We could paraphrase this verse to read, “And are built upon the Word of God which is the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief-corner stone.”

    It is true that we read in Revelation 21:14 about the holy city, new Jerusalem having “twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb,” but we must understand that the foundations represent Christ. Throughout eternity future in the new heaven and new earth, the fullness of the believers represented by the twelve apostles are His body. They are forever intimately identified with Him.

    This verse, too, is designed by God to be a test for the church. Unfortunately, a great many pastors and Bible teachers have failed the test.

    How then are we to understand Matthew 16:19, where we read:

And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

    What are the keys that are given to the church. The keys can only be the Bible. God uses the key which is the Bible to open the bates of hell to free men from the wrath of God. God uses the key of the Bible to open the door (Christ) into the kingdom of God. That is why we read in II Corinthians 2:15, 16:

For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish: To the one we are the savour of death unto death; and to the other the savour of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things?

    We are this fragrance because we as true believers are custodians of the keys, the Bible. But who opens and shuts these gigantic spiritual doors. We read in Revelations 3:7:

And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write; These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth;

    This verse clearly teaches that it is Christ who opens and shuts. Significantly, God wrote Matthew 16:19 very carefully. Unfortunately,

something of this care was lost when the Greek words were translated into English. The verse should read:

...whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall having been bound in heaven; and whatsover though shalt loose on earth shall having been loosed in heaven.

    By use of the past perfect tense, God is assuring us that the prior action was God’s action. He has elected and saved a person because the church which was made the custodian of the keys, the Bible, had faithfully declared the Gospel.

Does Church Membership Guarantee Salvation?

    There are many pastors who take comfort in these words of Matthew 16:19 as well as the words of Matthew 18:18, which reads:

Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

    They wrongly believe that when the pastor and elders or deacons conclude that a person has become saved, it is guaranteed that the person has indeed become saved. They fail to realize that the verb tenses in this verse, as was true with the verbs in Matthew 16:19, which describe salvation, are in the past perfect tense. “Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall having been bound in heaven,” and “Whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall having been loosed in heaven.”

    The action of saving is God’s action. The external church functioned as God’s servant to send out the Gospel. It functioned as God’s servant to welcome those who appeared to have become saved into the congregation. It functioned as God’s servants to teach and guide, by means of the Bible, those who appeared to have become saved.

    But no pastor and no church can cause someone being ministered to within the congregation to become saved. No human has an insight as to who

is elect of God. That is God’s work entirely. Therefore, the best the church leaders can do is assume that some within the congregation may have become saved. On the other hand, there may be those who appear to have become saved but in actuality, they have not become saved.

    Therefore, the preaching to the congregation and the guidance of the congregation during the church age always had to include warnings concerning God’s judgment on the unsaved as well as the warning to the whole congregation to make sure of their salvation. This is so, as II Corinthians 13:5 admonishes:

Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?

    Those who search their own hearts and know they are saved can know that they are a part of the bride of Christ, the eternal invisible church over which the bates of hell cannot prevail because Christ has paid for all of their sins.

    On the other hand, we can know that the corporate external church known as congregations and denominations have no assurance that they are safe from the wrath of God.

    Since the true believers within a congregation cannot come under God’s wrath, this warning was particularly leveled against the external body, which consists of all the churches and congregations that exist today. Even as the seven churches of Revelation 2 and 3 were judged and were completely removed, so any and every congregation can come under the judgment of God. Because there has never been a perfect church at any time in the history of the world, it is a testimony to the patience and mercy of God that congregations and denominations continued to flourish in the New Testament era. In spite of their flaws and defects, God has used the churches during the last more than 1950 years to bring the Gospel to the world. These churches from many different denominations have been the vehicle, the instrument by which the Gospel of salvation has gone into virtually every country of the world.

    This helps us to understand John 20:22, 23 which declares:

And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.

    We know, of course, that only God can forgive sins (Mark 2:7). Therefore, we must understand that this verse is teaching that it is God who does the forgiving. The church acknowledges the person’s forgiveness (salvation) by welcoming him into the congregation as a saved person.

    Under no circumstance may the church believe that those who follow the rules of the church and become members are definitely those who were elected to salvation. Only God can know who the elect are. We must consider, for example, the Old Testament nation of Israel which was the church (Acts 7:38) until the season of the New Testament church. We read of them in Hebrews 3:17-19:

But with whom was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness? And to whom snare he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.

    Again in Romans 9:31, 32. God makes reference to them:

But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness. Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumblingstone;

    Indeed, these verses tell us that a church can be used of God to further His kingdom and yet have very few true believers within it. We also have the information on the church of Sardis (Revelation 3:6). It had already become a dead church (verse 1) although it still had a few names (verse 4) of true believers.

    As we have looked more carefully at these three verses, we have found no indication that the pastor and church rulers have great spiritual authority. Nor do we find that the church doctrines are necessarily to be trusted as true and trustworthy. The elders are overseers who cared for the church. They ruled over the church to make sure the preached Gospel was as accurate as possible. They were to be sure that everything was done decently and in good order. They were to make sure that the elders and deacons meet the qualification set forth in I Timothy 3. But the only authority that saves people is God Himself. God is the only one who knows who the elect are. God is the only one who decides when He will apply His Word to the life of the individual He plans to save. The elders were to then welcome that person into the church membership.

but we will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the word.

    The occasion is the appointment in the early church of seven men to ease the load of the apostles. In this verse, God describes how the spiritual heads of the church were to operate. They are to minister the Word, that is they were to teach and preach the Bible. To do this adequately, they had to study the Word to make sure they were teaching and preaching what God declares and not ideas that came from men’s minds. They were to faithfully preach the whole counsel of God so that the unsaved hear of their need for salvation and the true believers could learn more and more about the kingdom of God, so that through God’s Word, they will grow in grace.

    But secondly, they were to give themselves continually in prayer. Why is this emphasized? What is prayer. Prayer is communicating with God. Why must the spiritual shepherds of the church continually communicate with God?

    It is easy to understand this if we are walking very humbly before God. We will recognize that in ourselves we have no understanding, no spiritual strength, no wisdom. We know that in ourselves we will never understand the Bible. God the Holy Spirit must open our eyes. We know that we can’t get anyone saved. But we can plead with God for mercy on behalf of those to whom we are ministering the Word. We should pray that our life will be a faithful example to the congregation. We are to continually pray because we art completely dependent upon God working in us to will and to do of His good pleasure in every aspect of our lives, and this is particularly true as we shepherd the congregation.

    In other words, the spiritual rulers in the congregation were to be totally dependent upon God. They must always remember they are simply His humble servants who had been given the task of shepherding the flock. There is no place in their life for pride or the idea that they have great spiritual

authority. Neither is there any Biblical basis for believing that the Confessions or other doctrines held by a church are necessarily pleasing to God.

    The Bible alone and in its entirety is the only authority that rules as truth. That is, every doctrine held by a church must always be subject to the authority of the Bible. In fact, in I Peter 5:2, 3, God admonishes the spiritual rulers of the church:

Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; Neither as being lords over God’s heritage, but being ensamples to the flock.

    The pastor and the elders, as humble examples to the congregation, should have been the first to depart out of the local congregation. As spiritual rulers they are overseers who tenderly care for the flock. As we just read, they are not “lords” over the congregation.

Faithful to the Word

    Actually, the problem is much greater and more serious than that which we have been describing. Let us think again of what the task of the pastor was. He has been called of God to faithfully bring forth what the Bible teaches. When he tells his congregation, “thus saith the Lord,” it better be exactly what the Bible teaches. If he teaches wrongly, he cannot lay the blame on his seminary or on his fellow pastors or on the elders. He has been called to be a faithful shepherded the flock, which is the congregation over which he has the spiritual oversight.

    Therefore, he must carefully and diligently check out everything he teaches to be sure it accords altogether with the Bible. If he is trusting certain doctrines because that is what the confession teaches or that is what we Baptists or we Lutherans or we Methodists believe, then he is trusting men rather than God. He must personally check out each doctrine he teaches so that he can show from God’s Word that what he is teaching is true. Unless this is done, it will simply mean that be is worshipping the men who designed these doctrines.

    For example, the Bible says faith is work (I Thessalonians 1:3, II Thessalonians 1:11). It also declares our salvation is not of our work (Ephesians 2:8-9). If a pastor teaches what the theologians who wrote the confession teach, namely, that faith is an instrument through which God works to save us, the pastor is preaching a man-made gospel. Another

example is that the Bible declares that what God hath joined together, let not man put asunder (Matthew 19:6). and “the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth” (Romans 7:2, I Corinthians 7:39). If the church allows the teaching that there can be divorce for fornication, it has established its own law. It is teaching the laws of men rather than the law of God. Moreover, the Bible declares that whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband committees adultery (Luke 16:18, Romans 7:3, etc.). If a church or a pastor teaches other than this, a teaching is being offered that is out of the mind of man rather than from God.

    Many, many doctrines taught by pastors can be added to this brief list. The scary and sad conclusion we must come to is that there is little or no evidence that many of these pastors have a fear of God. They do not tremble at His Word. It is no wonder, then, that God’s wrath is upon them and their church as God warns in Jeremiah 1:16:

And I will utter my judgments against them touching all their wickedness, who have forsaken me, and have burned incense unto other gods, and worshipped the works of their own hands.

    The Bible alone and in its entirety must always be considered the divine authority. No local church may in any way claim that authority,

Salvation By Grace Alone

    Our understanding of the nature of salvation is second in importance only to our understanding of the authority of the Bible. It is a subject that flows from the teachings of the Bible.

    The Bible insists that our salvation is by the grace of God alone. Under no circumstance is any work on our part to be regarded as even the smallest assist to our salvation. Unfortunately, while in the most faithful churches, lip service is paid to the concept of grace alone, in actuality, it is not believed or taught. The proof that it is not believed is seen in such actions and doctrines as the following,

Neither said they, Where is the LORD that brought us up out of the land of Egypt,

    In Jeremiah 2:8 we read:

The priests said not, Where is the LORD? and they that handle the law knew me not: the pastors also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and walked after things that do not profit.

    The plain implication of these statements is that those who have the spiritual oversight in the churches do not need God to further God’s plan of salvation. True, they pay lip service to the idea that they need God, but in reality, all that is necessary to further God’s salvation plan is under the control of the church. In the church all the necessary activities are going on to guarantee the salvation of the unsaved. Whatsoever is loosed by the activity of the church will be loosed in heaven. Whatsoever is bound or excommunicated by the church has been excommunicated by the edict of the church. Those who have made confession of faith are certainly believers.

    In other words, the church does not need God to get people saved. According to their incorrect understanding of the Bible, they have in place all

the decisions and actions that are required by anyone who desires to become saved.

Before We Are Saved We Are Spiritually Dead

    They take at face value that when God commands us to believe, to repent, to seek God, to call on Him, etc., we should and can do these things. They fail to realize that we are spiritually dead. By nature, we will never seek God, that is, seek God on His terms. They do not realize that no one can come to God unless God draws him. The do not realize that we are as spiritually dead as Lazarus of John 11 was physically dead. They do not realize that even as Christ called the physically dead Lazarus to come forth, He commands us, who are spiritually dead, to believe, to repent, etc. Lazarus obeyed the command to come forth, and he came out of that tomb. He could do so only because Christ gave him physical life and ears to hear. Likewise, before any spiritually dead person can obey God’s command to believe, God must save that spiritually dead person, give him spiritual ears to hear and a new resurrected soul, so he will obey.

    These two huge issues, the authority of the Bible and the nature of salvation, are far more important than the Biblical teaching that we have come to the end of the church age.

    I hope the reader is beginning to see the utmost seriousness of these statements. These statements have not been made because of a crusade or vendetta against the church. They are being made as solemn facts setting forth a realistic analysis of the condition that exists in the churches of our day.

    And that brings us to the fourth verse. In Matthew 16:18 Jesus declared:

I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

    Do the gates of hell identify with Satan? It is true that Satan is to spend eternity in hell, but does he control who is to go through the gates into hell? This must be obvious. Only God is the judge of the earth. Only God is in charge of who is to go through the gales into hell. The sad fact is that the gates of hell will prevail against all who remain unsaved. Hell will make its claim on every unsaved person because the wages of sin must be paid.

    But there are those whom hell cannot have. They are those who have become saved. The gates of hell cannot prevail against them. They have become eternal members of the invisible body of believers who are the eternal church of God. The corporate external church can have a few of these

members of the eternal church (like the church of Sardis) or it can have a sizable percentage of such members. Only God know who the true believers are in any congregation.

The Gates of Hell Will Prevail Against the Unsaved in the Church

    This verse cannot be teaching that the local churches will continue as the house of God all the way to the end of the world. Even as the seven churches of Revelation 2 and Revelation 3 came to an end, so can any or all churches come to an end. True, they will still physically be here all the way to the end, just as synagogues which were a part of an earlier season of God’s program of the Gospel, are still here. But as we approach the end neither the synagogues nor the churches have any part in God’s Gospel program. It must be clearly understood that on this earth there are two churches. The one which is called Jerusalem above (Galatians 4:26), consists of those who truly have been saved. The persons who are a part of this church may be only a small part of the members of a local congregation. The gates of hell cannot prevail against these individuals.

    There also exists the Jerusalem which is now (Galatians 4:25). They are all the members of the local congregation who are not saved. The gates of hell will prevail against them.

    In Matthew 16:18 God gave His wonderful promise, “I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” As we have seen, in the minds of many people, the church against which the gates of hell cannot prevail is considered to be the corporate external church known by such names as the First Methodist Church, Redeemer Lutheran Church, or Second Reformed Church.

    It is true that these external corporate bodies (which include all of the congregations and denominations that believe the Bible is the Word of God), are holy organisms established more or less according to Biblical rules. For example, in I Timothy 3 God gives very careful rules for the selection of elders and deacons. But these churches and denominations have no guarantee of

length of time of existence. For example, in Revelation 2 and Revelation 3 God speaks of seven churches that were in existence at the time the Bible was being finished. Yet a few hundred years later, all of these churches had disappeared. Indeed, afterwards for many hundreds of years there was no Christian witness of any kind in the cities wherein these churches had been located. Thus, we can be certain that the church Christ has in view in Matthew 16 is not the corporate external church which consists of local congregations that can be found throughout the world.

    What church is it then that Jesus had in view when He said, “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” As we have seen, the solution is that there is an eternal church which is made up of all those individuals who personally have become saved. They were given eternal life because Jesus as their Savior has paid for each and every one of their sins. Therefore, forever more they had become safe and secure, Matthew 16 very definitely has this spiritual church in view. It can never come under the wrath of God which is the essence of hell. The gates of hell can never make a claim upon those who are truly saved.

    There is a corporate external church which consists of all the churches and congregations as they are found on the face of the earth. There is also an eternal invisible church that is made up of all the true believers who during the church age were normally found in the corporate external churches. But when Christ says, “I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it,” He isn’t speaking of the corporate external churches. The same holds true when He speaks of the church as the bride of the Lamb. Only the eternal invisible church is the bride of Christ.

    When He speaks of the church as His body, He can be speaking only of the eternal invisible church. When He speaks of the church in Ephesians 3:10 as the evidence of the manifold wisdom of God, it can only be the eternal invisible church. When He declares in Colossians 1:18 that He is the head of the church, again, it can only be the eternal invisible church.

Is the Local Congregation the Bride of Christ?

    Unfortunately, in a great many churches, no distinction is made between the corporate external church that consists, on the one hand, of various local congregations, and on the other hand, the eternal invisible church. Fact is, in many churches, it is assumed that those who have made profession of faith, who have been baptized in water, who have become members of the church, and who regularly partake of the Lord’s Supper, are truly saved. Therefore, the idea exists that the whole congregation is saved.

    Therefore, effectively, it is believed that the congregation itself is the body of Christ, the bride of Christ. The congregation then is looked upon as the eternal invisible church.

    But this thinking is without Biblical justification. None of the above actions which have been performed by each church member initiates or proves salvation. A person can do all of these things and still be as unsaved as the most wicked individual in the world.

    Salvation is 100% an action of God in which He makes the individual a new creation. He gives the saved one a new resurrected soul in which he never wishes to sin again. And only God knows those whom He has saved. True, the one who has become saved will know he has become saved. I John 2:3 assures us:

And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.

    Therefore, the one who has truly become saved will be deeply concerned that all of the doctrines he holds are true to the Bible. He will realize that church doctrine and confessions may never be considered to be ultimate truth. In fact, perhaps without realizing it, he will be of the same mood as the writer of Article VII of the Belgic Confession, which places that Confession and church doctrines precisely where they ought to be. This article reads as follows.

Article VII

The Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures to be the Only Rule of Faith

    We believe that those Holy Scriptures fully contain the will of God, and that whatsoever man ought to believe unto salvation is sufficiently taught therein. For since the whole manner of worship which God requires of us is written in them at large, it is unlawful for any one, though an apostle, to teach otherwise than we are now taught in the Holy Scriptures: nay, though it were an angel from heaven, as the apostle Paul says. For it is forbidden to add unto or take away anything from the Word of God, it does thereby evidently appear that the doctrine thereof is most perfect and complete in all respects.

    Neither may we consider any writings of men, however holy these men may have been, of equal value with these divine Scriptures, nor ought we to consider customs, or the great multitude, or antiquity, or

succession of times and persons, or councils, decrees or statutes, as of equal value with the truths of God, since the truth is above all; for all men are of themselves liars, anymore vain than vanity itself. Therefore, we reject with all our hearts whatsoever does not agree with this infallible rule, as the apostles have taught us, saying, Prove the spirits, whether they are of God. Likewise: If any one cometh unto you, and bringeth not this teaching, receive him not into your house.

    Unfortunately, while this excellent statement of Article VII continues to be in the Belgic Confession of our day, there exists hardly a person anywhere who is paying attention to this Article. Had it been taken seriously, it would have meant that the churches that used the Belgic Confession would have been constantly examining this Confession to make sure that in every part it was as Biblical as possible. Had they done this, they would have discovered that many statements in the Belgic Confession are not nearly as Biblical as they should be.

For example, Article XXIV of this Confession states:

    We believe that this true faith, being wrought in man by the hearing of the Word of God, and the operation of the Holy Spirit, regenerates him and makes him a new man.

    This statement long ago should have been corrected. The Bible teaches that faith is a work. Therefore, this statement is effectively teaching that there is homework (faith) that we do that regenerates us. The truth is that the faith God gives the believer is always a result or product of salvation. Faith is a good work like all of the good works that become evident in the life of the one who becomes saved.

    Throughout the years that followed the adoption of the various confessions, like the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Canons of Dort, the Westminster Confession, the Baptist Confession, the Augsburg Confession, churches should have continued to check the Confessions by the Word of God and made necessary corrections. True, these Confessions would never have become a perfect presentation of truth because they were not divinely inspired. But they could have become much more accurate than they are. Furthermore, as they were corrected, the emphasis would have been made more clear that the final authority is the Bible alone and its entirety.

    Instead, however, the churches accepted these Confessions as they were first adopted by the churches. They were looked upon as a final

authoritarian statement concerning Biblical truth. And as the years went by, they became venerated as truth, their antiquity giving credence to this concept. Thus, the incorrect teachings in these Confessions became high places. They effectively were lies in that they claimed that God had said these things when God had not said these things.

    If weave truly saved, we will realize that the ultimate source of truth can only be the Bible. We will begin to realize that church teachings such as Confessions can serve as guides but can never be considered the final authority. Unfortunately, in the churches of our day, few church members see that there is a difference between what the church teaches, as it tries to remain faithful to the Confessions, and what the Bible teaches.

    That is why we, therefore, must clearly recognize there is a great difference between the corporate external church and the eternal invisible church. This great difference exists even though during the church age, the members of the eternal invisible church worshipped under the roof of the external visible church wherein could be found many defects.

    Actually, at times, perhaps only a tiny remnant of a congregation was a part of the eternal invisible church. Certainly, at any time during the church age, it was presumptuous for a pastor to assume that virtually all of the members of his church were part of the eternal invisible church.

    We have learned that a great many New Testament churches have fallen into the snare of pride. They unwittingly have developed the idea that they virtually have as much authority as God Himself.

Thou Art a Man, and Not God

    Now we understand one good reason why God has written Ezekiel 28. There God speaks of the merchant city Tyre that sent out the ships of Tarshish. A careful study of this chapter would show that Tyre represents the churches as they send the Gospel into the world. By this means the gold and silver and other valuable commodities that represent the true believers are

brought into the kingdom of God. The prince of Tyre represents the pastors, the elders, and the deacons who have been given the spiritual rule of the congregation God warns these rulers in verse 2:

Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; yet thou art a man, and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God:

    This verse is striking the nail on the head. God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. When a church begins to think and act as if it has Virutally the same authority as God, something is going to happen. God is long suffering. He overlooked the spiritual high places for a long time. But He finally brings that pride to an end. We presently are living at that time when God’s judgment has fallen upon the churches. The church rulers are not God, they are men!

    Ezekiel 28:6-10 records:

Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God; Behold, therefore I will bring strangers upon thee, the terrible of the nations: and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall defile thy brightness. They shall bring thee down to the pit, and thou shalt die the deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the seas. Wilt thou yet say before him that slayers thee, I am God? but thou shalt be a man, and no God, in the hand of him that slayeth thee. Thou shalt die the deaths of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.

    We have learned that the four verses we have been considering are very frequently understood to teach that the corporate, external church which is made up of local churches, is the foundation of truth. The spiritual rulers are its foundation. They act to save people and God sanctions their actions. Thus, they need not spend much time differentiating between the eternal church and the external church. They are convinced that essentially they are one and the same because they believe virtually all members of the church are saved. This kind of thinking fostered the same kind of wrong thinking that Lucifer fell into. He wanted to be God (Isaiah 14:13-14), when in actuality, he had been

created to be a ministering spirit (Hebrews 1:13). True believers always recognize we are humble servants of God. We read of Moses the servant of God (Joshua 1:1) and of Joshua the servant of the Lord (Joshua 24:29). Could it be that each of us might humbly be the servant of Christ.

    Unfortunately, the conclusions of this chapter make virtually all congregations look bad. Therefore, they will greatly offend many pastors and church members. There are many church members who have complete confidence in the spiritual integrity of their pastor. They believe he is a loving faithful shepherd who is faithfully declaring the Word of God.

    The real test, however, is not what is seen with our eyes, but what any pastor or denomination does with these four verses. If they believe that the church is the pillar and ground of truth, if they believe that those who have made a profession of faith and who trust that what their church teaches is faithful to God’s Word, and therefore, ordinarily are always to be considered true believers, then this maybe an indication that these church overseers have taken on great spiritual authority. They will have taken on a spiritual authority that is far beyond that which the Bible teaches.

    To further test this situation one has only to examine the teachings of the denomination to which this church belongs. Ordinarily, a pastor will be altogether faithful to the doctrines held by his denomination. If he is not faithful to these doctrines, he would soon no longer be able to continue as a pastor in that denomination. If the denomination teaches that the local churches will endure to the end because Satan cannot prevail against them, if it teaches that the local church membership consists mostly of born-again believers, usually he will also hold those doctrines as truth. It will be clear evidence that, that church has many high places.

    Ultimately, of course, we have learned in this study and we must realize that even if a local church could be found in which the pastor is the loving, humble overseer a pastor ought to be, the Holy Spirit would still not be saving people in that congregation. Even if the pastor is an exemplary example of a humble, faithful servant of Christ constantly praying for God’s mercy upon those to whom he is ministering the Bible, the believers should depart out. These statements are true because the era of the church age, the season of the early rain that has brought in the Pentecostal harvest of the firstfruits, has ended. The temple has come to an end so that all the precious, living stones within it have been thrown down.