The Dead Living Church: The Original Concept of the Ekklesia and its perversion
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The Dead Living Church - Isaak K. Arikawe
Introduction
Jesus replied,
You are blessed, Simon, son of John, because my Father in heaven has revealed this to you. You did not learn this from any human being. Now, I say you that you are Peter (which means rock) and upon this rock I will build my Church and all the power of hell will not conquer it."
Matthew 16:17-18
...I know all the things you do, but that you have a reputation for being alive-but you are dead. Wake up! Strengthen what little remains, for even what is left is almost dead. I find that your actions do not meet the requirement.
Revelations 3:1-2
The dead-living church is an inspiration from the Holy Spirit. The caption expresses the heaviness in the heart of Jesus concerning the church today. You may question the reason for such a caption and wonder if the phrase does make any sense at all. Whatever may be your opinion as touching the issue, the truth is that the Holy Spirit is trying to pass a message across to the church through this book. You will come to understand these things as you read on. More clarifications will also be made in the Volume II of the book.
The Dead-Living Church is a spiritual paradox. It is a phrase which, although it sounds absurd, has a lot of truth in it. The phrase is absurd in the sense that it seems neither logical nor sensible. It sounds completely ridiculous. It is also an oxymoron, that is, it involves placing two contrasting words together to pass a message across to the audience. This implies that God has a picture in mind and He is using this phrase to paint the picture for those with prophetic eyes and hearts so that they can understand. It may be hard to imagine that something could be both dead and living at the same time.
Jesus declared a great visionary statement over two thousand years ago: Now I say to you that you are Peter (which means 'rock' and upon this I will build my church and all the power of hell (gates of Hades) will not conquer it. (Matthew 16.18). From Jesus' statement, you will observe that some types of churches must have been in existence before He came on the scene to say He would build His own church. Secondly, you will also discover that none of the disciples asked him what He meant by the word
Church, meaning that they were already familiar with the term. This means that the word was not in any way new to them. Thirdly, the word
Church is not a religious term. It is actually a secular and political term. The Greek word
Ekklesia means
The assembly,
the called out,
the congregation or
the parliament, in contemporary terms. The Greek established parliaments long before the birth of Jesus. There was an assembly of the citizens of the Greek Nation (see Acts 19:32, 39). It was in this Greek parliament that issues beyond individuals or selected groups were resolved. The verdicts given by these assemblies were usually the final after the government had endorsed their recommendations. Fourthly, the Greek translation was used over one hundred times in the scriptures, especially in the Old Testament. (1 Samuel 19:20 and Numbers 22:4). In the New Testament, the early church saw themselves as
The called out ones" (Hebrew 1:1-2) and as the legitimate children of Israel-those who are born of God through the new covenant in Jesus.
Jesus was therefore introducing another concept entirely different from what people in the world were used to. Although other churches and assemblies were established constitutionally, He said, I will build my own kind of church.
Many people misinterpret this statement by translating or relating the word build
to physical, civil engineering structures. No! Jesus was not talking about physical building; He was rather talking about a different kind of people-a holy nation, those whose hearts can never be corrupted, damaged, subjected and limited by the systems of this world.
No doubt, when purpose is not known, abuse is inevitable. When the definition of a concept is not clearly understood, it will never be used for its original intent. It is also clear that death and decaying may not always happen simultaneously. If there are any malfunctioning parts in a system, that system will die gradually. And once the system is dead, the decaying process will also be gradual. Just as diseases could bring about malfunctioning in the life of an individual, lack of understanding could also hinder the church from fulfilling the mandate of God on earth, thereby bringing about the operation of the spirit of death.
In this book, so much is revealed about the dead and the living church. As you read along, you will also see the characteristics of both kinds of churches. Although human parameters and standards for measuring what a living church is may differ from one individual to another, we must still go on to find what the truth is. The church of Jesus has been operating on human senses for hundreds of years now. The Holy Spirit, who is the guide of the church, has been somewhat sidelined while opinion and experience of experts have taken the place of the Prophetic in the church of Jesus. The oneness in the assembly of Jesus Christ has been divided by self-centredness, lust for position and titles, money and fame, racism and tribalism, educational status and connection
, to mention a few. Politics has become the order of the day. The purpose of the church is to reconcile the world back to the Creator through our lifestyles and kingdom values, but it is sad that the church is also beginning to pursue shadows instead of reality.
In this book, deep truths about the church of Jesus are revealed and the consequences of deadness in the church are also mentioned. It is painful to see that the perfect church is yet to emerge on the earth, although the whole heaven and the earth have been waiting for her manifestation. The church is responsible for enforcing the will of God on the earth. The church is likewise responsible for the delay in the coming of Jesus. It's not the devil. The Bible says For he must remain in heaven until the time for the final restoration (restitution) of all things, as God promised long ago through his holy prophets
(Act 3:21). This means that, Jesus will not return, until the church has dealt with the global issues, thereby subjecting men to the authority of Heaven. It is rather unfortunate that many believers are praying and waiting for an opportunity to escape from the world, not knowing that they have been chosen by God to take authority on earth and teach all nations the ways of God until the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our God and His