Church start
The church begins to be begoged by Jesus Christ at the beginning of her public ministry and is born or formed in its entirety with the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, marking by the grace of God, the beginning of a new time, that of the New Covenant. Of course, for this to happen, the labor pains, the suffering that eventually led to the death of our Lord and Redeemer, were necessary. In that death, He bears our sins, pays our guilts (Col 2.13-15). Likewise, his resurrection from the dead was necessary and through it he gave us life, power and victory. Also in his ascension he fully recovers, from the hand of the Father, his power, dominion and authority. Thus establishing his kingdom and delegating to his new people, the church.
Ekklesía (ἐκκλησία)
In its original, from ancient Greek, Ekklesía literally means assembly. It referred to the main assembly of Athenian democracy in ancient Greece, which was established in 594 BC and had a popular character.
Reviewing the New Testament scriptures, we found a broad definition to complete the spiritual idea of what church is. The Holy Ghost brought extensive revelation to the biblical writers and starting from the church base as assembly or congregation of the Saints, he wanted to make it very clear to us that he did not only mean that. That this is not a liturgical meeting at all, but the biblical and spiritual church has a much broader definition and meaning. Making a brief mention of some of them will help us to have a better understanding of what is truly church in God’s heart and thought.
Church is the body of Christ (Eph 1:22, 23), it is the People of God (1 Pet 2.9), and the family of God (Eph 2.19). It is the temple and abode of God, it is a holy building (1 Co 3:16-17). Church is the fulness of Christ (Eph 1.22-23), also a column and bulwark of truth (1 Tim 3.15).
Moreover, the church is the community of men and women, who recognizing Jesus Christ as the Lord of their lives, are born again. And united in commitment to covenant, they make up God’s people. It is the communion of the saints who live the Kingdom of God.
The church is the community of disciples of Jesus Christ, in a living communion, committed to the kingdom of God, to manifest it and extend it, which is their mission.
We have learned that church is not an organization but an organism, that has life, that is on the move and growing. The church is not static but dynamic. It’s not a religion, it’s life and relationship. This is, broadly speaking, true ekklesia!
The Primitive Church
We see the development of the church in its first centuries. It begins in Jerusalem and grows by leaps and bounds, it is true salt and light, they live the Kingdom as a true family. A united community in which there were no among them needed. In this way it extends to the entire province of Judea itself… and the neighboring provinces of Galilee and Samaria…
"So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace, being edified; and, walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, was multiplied." (Acts 9.31).
To all nations was the lord’s command. then, beginning with Peter at Cornelius’s house in Caesarea, passing through Antioch where Paul’s ministry begins, until it could be said: «So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ.» (Ro 15.19).
Decline
For some reason, God in his immense wisdom and sovereignty has allowed the church to decline from its original purpose, starting with the legalization of the «Christian religion» in 313 AD by Emperor Constantine. In this way, the church is institutionalized, accommodated, gentrified. The church loses its flavor, loses its aroma, loses its purpose. It loses its brilliance, its glare, its light.
The institutionalized church reaches very low degrees, completely losing its essence, its mission and purpose. In the Middle Ages he immerses himself in such an obscurantism that even the «church» itself forbids the reading of the Holy Scriptures. The church completely lost its message.
Church restoration process
Once again, God in his immense sovereignty and abundant grace begins a process of restoration of the church. Starting with the well-known Protestant Reformation, starting with Martin Luther and others who rose in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. And going through some times of restoration such as the Pentecostal revival in the early twentieth century, and the so-called charismatic renewal, of the 60s, of which we can say that we are somehow a part.
Now what? We have been more than half a century since the beginning of the last restoration movement, although the church in general has benefited, awakened and adopted some of the areas that touched the restoration, other more fundamental points of this restoration have not assumed, such as the «Eternal Purpose of God», the «Gospel of the Kingdom of God», the «Lord of Jesus Christ» , the great commission not merely as the salvation of souls but the go and «make disciples».
A small fear that has accompanied us sometimes is to gentrities, in settling into the new reality, to safeguard ourselves we have repeated many times that we are not a denomination, that we are a movement. Along the way some of us have said it is necessary to renew the renewal, others have risen saying we are the renewal of renewal (and some have left with this idea, but the reality is that they have not improved what we live). Rather, we must say that over the years we have seen many go back to post-modern evangelical religiosity.
Is that it?
Now the question is, have we seen everything we had to do? The church devised by God, is this it? We mentioned the beginning of the church through the work of Jesus Christ and the coming of the Holy Ghost, we made a brief mention of the church’s advancement in the first three centuries, and then its decline. We also saw how after several centuries of darkness God begins to restore the church, going through different «restoration movements». But… is this it? Have we already attained the entire restoration of the Church? There’s more? If there’s more, what are we doing?
The Reedification of the Holy City
Let’s look at the illustration of Nehemiah and the reconstruction of the city of Jerusalem that had been destroyed. The village begins the work and with great enthusiasm reach half, then come the enemies and the work of reconstruction stops. And there we are… trying to take care of what has been achieved, we must defend what is built…
But what about the re-builtness of the city? And all that needs to be restored…?
"So we rebuilt the wall till all of it reached half its height, for the people worked with all their heart. 7 But when Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabs, the Ammonites and the people of Ashdod heard that the repairs to Jerusalem’s walls had gone ahead and that the gaps were being closed, they were very angry. 8They all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem and stir up trouble against it. 9 But we prayed to our God and posted a guard day and night to meet this threat. 10 Meanwhile, the people in Judah said, “The strength of the laborers is giving out, and there is so much rubble that we cannot rebuild the wall.” 11 Also our enemies said, “Before they know it or see us, we will be right there among them and will kill them and put an end to the work.” 12 Then the Jews who lived near them came and told us ten times over, “Wherever you turn, they will attack us.” 13 Therefore I stationed some of the people behind the lowest points of the wall at the exposed places, posting them by families, with their swords, spears and bows. 14 After I looked things over, I stood up and said to the nobles, the officials and the rest of the people, “Don’t be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your families, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes.” 15 When our enemies heard that we were aware of their plot and that God had frustrated it, we all returned to the wall, each to our own work. 16From that day on, half of my men did the work, while the other half were equipped with spears, shields, bows and armor. The officers posted themselves behind all the people of Judah 17 who were building the wall. Those who carried materials did their work with one hand and held a weapon in the other, 18 and each of the builders wore his sword at his side as he worked. But the man who sounded the trumpet stayed with me. 19 Then I said to the nobles, the officials and the rest of the people, “The work is extensive and spread out, and we are widely separated from each other along the wall. 20 Wherever you hear the sound of the trumpet, join us there. Our God will fight for us!” 21 So we continued the work with half the men holding spears, from the first light of dawn till the stars came out. 22 At that time I also said to the people, “Have every man and his helper stay inside Jerusalem at night, so they can serve us as guards by night and as workers by day.” 23 Neither I nor my brothers nor my men nor the guards with me took off our clothes; each had his weapon, even when he went for water." (Nehemiah 4.6-23)
In short
- Vs. 6. – We build up to half of… with encouragement…
- Vs. 7-8. – The enemy gets angry and conspires…
- Vs. 9. – We heard about the conspiracy… we prayed… And we put guards against them.
- Vs. 10. – The discouragement came… «The strength of the laborers is giving out… the rubble is too much… we cannot build…»
- Vs. 12. – Fear and worry advance… «from all places… they will fall upon us…»
- Vs. 13. – The concern: the defense of the city against enemies…
- Vs. 14. – Cheers,«I stood up and said…»
- Vs. 15. – We understood… and we all turned to the wall, each to his task.»
- Vs. 16. – «From that day on, half worked on the site and half defended…»
- Vs. 17-18. – «Those who built… with one hand they worked on the work and in the other they had the sword.»
- Vs. 19. – «The work is great and vast… and we are far from one another.»
- Vs. 20. – Let’s pay attention to the trumpet… where it sounds we must meet there to help us… «God will fight for us»
- Vs. 22. – «Everyone stays inside… at night serve as a sentinel and by day in the work.»
- Vs.23. – No one takes off their clothes…
Let´s move towards the Total Restoration of the Church
What I mean is that we have barely built halfway. There is still much to restore, there is much to be re-built, we have not yet achieved everything, yet the church needs to be restored, this process of restoration of the church is not yet finished… what are we going to do? Are we going to stay in the first verses? Are we going to stay in the Statu Quo? Will we conform to the church of this century? Or do we have something else to contribute to our generation and the next?
I personally believe that we have stopped… We’re not rebuilding… Our walls are in the middle… What we did, we did with a lot of encouragement, but here we stayed, we tried to give maintenance to what we have, sometimes we achieved but other times we lose cattle land. We have half the wall well maintained and our guards defend it. We know every inch of our wall, we have even memorized it, once after time we have repaired and painted it, we remove the cobwebs and the humidity… But it’s still in half.
There’s a lot more to restore!!!
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