Jesus predicted the Temple in Jerusalem would be destroyed, and He would rebuild it in three days (John 2). The temple in Jerusalem was physically destroyed around 70 AD. But Jesus wasn't talking about rebuilding a physical temple. Before He died, the temple was the place where you made contact with God. Remission of sins was by way of animal sacrifice. Contact with God was via an intercessor/mediator priest. Only the high priest was allowed to enter the 'inner sanctum' or 'Holy of Holies', partitioned off by heavy curtains. The high priest was only allowed behind those curtains, (where the Ark of the Covenant containing the Ten Commandments was stored), once a year. And from the time of the Babylonian occupation, some four hundred years before Jesus, even the Ark has been missing.
When Jesus was talking about destruction and rebuilding of the temple, He was referring to that system and His own body. When He died, the curtains were torn from top to bottom, symbolising destruction of the old system and new access to God for every Christian from any place on earth, and making a mortal go-between obsolete. He rebuilt the 'Temple' in three days by rising on the third! From that moment on, Jesus became our intercessor to the Father and WE became the temple of the Holy Spirit! All Christians together ARE the Church, both in a physical, as well as a spiritual sense.
The church buildings we see around us are symbols of our opulent society, reflecting its value system, and soaking up most of the money put on the offering plate. They also have no genuine place in the true Gospel. The great majority of our tithes go towards maintaining this unbiblical practice (having physical buildings), instead of looking after the needy. The practice is based on the Old Covenant system and many elements of other religions.
ORGANISED RELIGION
There is a fallacy doing the rounds. It says you must belong to a recognized church congregation in order to stay on the straight and narrow. Christians who have made a stand to no longer support organizationally formal religion are deemed to be rebels and trouble makers. True, all Christians need fellowship with other Christians and we must not stop meeting together. But nowhere does it say this must be in a church as we know it, with a format of meeting which has only been in existence little over 500 years. Let me make this very clear: I am not in the business of trying to stop people from going to church, God forbid!! I just want you to see Sunday church attendance for what it really is: an invention of man (which is why it comes with a whole lot of hidden agendas). And I'd like those who attend to respect the views of those who feel they can't. The claim is made by the leaders of those churches that if we cease supporting their ritualistic format, we will soon stray into false doctrine or lose our way, even backslide or lose our salvation. These are scare tactics used to keep us in a place of bondage, where we reinforce and support their private vision, very often based on a personal agenda.
The largest Christian organization in the world, the Roman Catholic Church, is teaching its members to pray to statues. The largest Protestant version, the Church of England, is now splitting over whether homosexuals ought to be allowed to be clergy. Both of these two organisations hold wealth in real estate beyond imagination. The Baptist Church doesn't believe in contemporary Spiritual gifts. And the liveliest of modern Christian movements, the Charismatic church, is now teaching its members that God wants you to love money, after all. I cannot see that attending an established church is any protection against going astray or exposure to false doctrine. If anything, those who attend are more likely to be drawn into heresy, because our beliefs are greatly influenced by constant exposure to a particular preaching theme and ritual example.
Christianity survived for 1500 years without Sunday morning services. Genuine Christianity is a way of life. Real 'Church' happens every day, whenever Christians meet. It is expressed in our attitudes to other people and the softening of our hearts. It is strengthened by close and intimate fellowship with other Christians, the inner flame fanned by the flow of agape love. It happens when we meet in homes, or parks, or on the beach. Church happens whenever and wherever two or three of us are gathered in His name! Church is fellowship with other Christians.
THINGS IN TODAY'S CHRISTIANITY THAT ARE NOT BIBLICALLY PART OF THE NEW COVENANT
The New Covenant is explained in detail in Hebrews, and an essay on the subject is in Series 1. The Old Covenant, where animal sacrifice was a covering for the sins of the Israelites, is obsolete. Under the New Covenant, Jesus' blood was the final sacrifice. From that time on, His followers should have entered into an unprecedented freedom of worship and relationship with their Maker, that would forever set them apart from followers of any other religion. At the very beginning they did enjoy this freedom, but such is the nature of Man, that soon they went back to the predictability of organised religion. Now, we actually limit the Holy Spirit to an operational scope that has OUR approval! And once the Holy Spirit has been suppressed, the doors open wide to the introduction of unscriptural practices.
Please understand that these things are not necessarily always wrong or harmful in themselves (sometimes they are). It is just that these things are not in the Bible, yet have come to define Christianity far more than the things that ARE in the Bible.
UNBIBLICAL BIBLICAL NEW COVENANT
1. Church Buildings 1. We are the Temple
2. Sunday services 2. Worship anywhere, anytime
3. Salaried pastors 3. Equal brothers bringing various Gifts
4. Church hierarchy 4. Jesus over husbands over wives
5. New Covenant Tithing 5. Giving as God presents the need
6. Women preachers 6. Jesus is our Teacher
7. Praying to Saints and statues 7. Praying directly to Jesus or the Father
8. Using the 'Day of rest' for rushing 8. Relaxed, quality-time relationships
around church activities "stop, revive, survive"
9. Simultaneous tongues 9. One at a time, with interpreter present
10. Easter eggs and Christmas trees 10. The only symbols are wine and bread
11. Being slain in the Spirit 11. Don't look for signs
12. Chasing wealth 12. Trust Jesus to provide all your needs
13. Rosary beads, Hail Marys 13. Jesus has paid the penalty for our sin
If I went on, the number of unbiblical practices would possibly go to hundreds, if not thousands. But that is not the purpose here. I encourage everyone reading this to start thinking and praying every time they do something they have long regarded as 'Christian' and ask Jesus the question: "Is this Biblical, Lord?" It takes God's revelation to discern the Truth from man's invention. It is not Biblical to have our knowing Jesus taught to us. You only get to know the real Jesus by allowing Him toreveal Himself. That is Biblical! He is the Way, the Truth and the Life! But He doesn't force Himself on anyone. Yet He is alive and perfectly capable of revealing Himself to those of us who seek Him!
SO, DO I STOP GOING TO CHURCH?
The answer to that is a resounding 'NO'!
That may be a bit of a shock after everything I've said, so I'd better explain myself. There is a great essay by Preston Eby on the Sigler website (http://www.sigler.org/eby/ Part 28) where he points out that the Greek word for church, 'ekklesia', literally means 'out-called'. In Revelation 18, a voice from heaven calls God's people out of Babylon. There have been more theses written about the meaning of 'Babylon' than almost any other Christian subject. The general consensus seems to be that Babylon is a pseudonym for organised religion. I am inclined to agree with that. The most persuasive argument supporting that view is this: To be called out of something, we must be in it!
However, the very valid point that Preston Eby makes is this: When we are called out of something, we must be called into something else. God is everywhere. He is with me in the valley of the shadow of death, yet leads me to still waters and green pastures. At this moment in time, God is using organised religion to reach the unsaved. Until there is that 'something else', there is no point in leaving a place where God is still working, in order to enter the desert on your own. Like the Israelites enslaved in Egypt, much preparation had to be made before the people were ready to leave for the Promised Land. And they all left together!
It is not I, whose job it is to call you out of Babylon. That call will be made by the Holy Spirit, in His perfect timing. Yet the Promised Land is waiting like a hidden glistening treasure, buried deep in a field up for sale. So far, we haven't dared to dig it up! We will all have to chip in to buy that field. Until we have enough, we must be like leaven, until the whole loaf is leavened. We should faithfully water and fertilise the mustard seed, until it grows into a tree. And so we should nurture our personal relationship with Jesus, until the trumpet sounds and the Holy Spirit calls us out.
SUMMARY
From the time of the resurrection, the collective congregation of born-again Christians has been the new Temple, rebuilt by Jesus in three days. There are many more believers today than there were then, but the new Temple is a flexible medium, constantly growing and able to expand indefinitely. Jesus now is the High Priest making representations to the Father on our behalf. The laws of God are no longer written on stone tablets, stored in a gold covered box kept in the Holy of Holies. They are now written on our hearts. The idea is that now we operate by laying down our life so that God can live through us.
The uncertainty of this new way of worship has man perplexed. We aren’t comfortable. What happens if nothing happens? We do so like the predictability of organized religion. It allows us to plan ahead. It allows the show to go on, even when we aren’t feeling crash hot. It caters for a measure of pretense when we don’t want others to know we aren’t on terribly good terms with our Lord at the moment. And we can leave the Church environment with a sigh of relief, grateful we can now be ourselves again. We don’t have to pretend to be more ‘spiritual’ than we are, until we bump into another Christian along the way. It is good to know what hymn comes next, who is getting on the pulpit today to badger the minds of the congregation. And it is comforting to add up all the donations made to try to appease God over the sins we are planning to commit.
Organised religion caters well for the split personality and living a double life. It provides ample job opportunities for those religiously inclined. It paves the way for mind manipulation and application of peer pressure. The soft-hearted and well-meaning in the congregation are a ready-made target group for con-artists.
The freedom Jesus died for is not something we cherish. Mainly because there is a price-tag we are unwilling to pay. And because it is something we can’t get away from, ever, as it is like carrying around your own church wherever you go.
CONCLUSION
Healthy questioning, combined with intimate personal contact with Jesus, will make sure each of our Christian walks is driven daily by the Holy Spirit. And that will be the catalyst in preparing the Church for His return!
Manifestation of the true Church is the sum of the intimacy of each of our individual relationships with Jesus. Nothing more. Nothing less. The more intimate we are with Him, the more the world will be able to see the Truth.
What don’t we like about God? Many of us are religious. We like rituals. We like predictability. We like everything done decently and in order. So we don’t like the way God expects us to rely on His Spirit to lead a meeting. We don’t like the uncertainty of having no fixed place to meet and not knowing what comes next.
And being able to leave a fixed place makes it possible for Dr. Jekyll to turn into Mr. Hyde as soon as the ‘service’ is over!