Characteristics of the Early
Church:The Church as One Body and
a Unity of Assemblies
The night before He was crucified,
the Lord Jesus prayed a high priestly, intercessory prayer to His Father
concerning His disciples. He prayed, "Holy Father, keep through Thine own
name those whom Thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are" (John
17:11). Jesus knew there would always be a tendency—aided and abetted by
Satan—for His disciples to go their separate ways and start their own
ministries and congregations. So He expresses, not only for His Father’s
"ears" but for those of His disciples as well, His desire that His
disciples remain united in spirit after His departure.
The Lord does not stop there:
"Neither pray I for these alone [that is, the twelve disciples minus
Judas], but for those also who shall believe on Me through their word; that
they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also
may be one in Us:that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me"
(17:20,21). This unity desired first for His disciples was to extend to all
believers in Christ. One very practical effect of such a unity would be its
testimony to the watching world that Jesus Christ had truly been sent by God
("Thou hast sent Me").
In answer to this prayer, the Holy
Spirit came down and baptized the believers in Christ "into one
body" (1 Cor. 12:13). At the risk of being repetitive, let us quote
several verses that refer to the one body of believers in Christ.
"For as we have many members
in one body, and all members have not the same office, so we, being many
are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another" (Rom.
12:4,5).
"The cup of blessing that we
bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread that we break,
is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we being many are one bread,
and one body:for we are all partakers of that one bread" (1 Cor.
10:16,17).
"For as the [human] body is
one and has many members, and all the members of that one body, being
many, are one body:so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all
baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond
or free…. For the body is not one member, but many" (1 Cor. 12:12-14).
"That He might reconcile both
[Jew and Gentile] unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the
enmity thereby…. There is one body" (Eph. 2:16; 4:4).
"Let the peace of God rule in
your hearts, to the which also you are called in one body" (Col.
3:15).
I have heard or read it expressed
a number of times:"God has arranged the Church into many different denominations
so that each believer may select the one with the kind of pastor, manner of
worship, scheme of church government, or variety of activities that best suit
his/her needs or personality." NOT SO! By no means is God
responsible for the many denominations and divisions of the Church! Sinful man
is responsible for them! I shall elaborate on this point in a later issue.
In the early years of the Church,
there was indeed one body in every sense of the word. There were no
divisions, no denominations. It is true that there were assemblies of believers
in many different countries, states, cities, and villages. But the New
Testament clearly shows that a strong unity existed among these assemblies.
There existed what is sometimes termed "a circle of fellowship." The
Church, the whole body of believers, did not consist of many independent
local assemblies but of interdependent assemblies, geographically
separated but united together as a complete and entire organism. We shall now
present various scriptural evidences of this unity.
The use of letters of
commendation. When brothers or sisters from one assembly visited another
assembly, they carried with them letters of introduction and commendation from
their home assembly, or from a well-known believer (such as the apostle Paul),
to the assembly being visited. These are referred to in 2 Cor. 3:1:"Do we
begin again to commend ourselves? or need we, as some others, epistles of
commendation to you, or letters of commendation from you?" After Apollos
had been taught by Aquila and Priscilla "the way of God more
perfectly," he prepared to travel on to Achaia. So "the brethren
wrote, exhorting the disciples to receive [Apollos], who, when he was come,
helped them much who had believed through grace" (Acts 19:24-28).
In a sense the Epistle to the
Romans is a letter of commendation that the apostle Paul expanded into a
lengthy treatise of doctrinal and practical ministry. Near the end of the
letter Paul writes:"I commend unto you Phoebe our sister, who is a servant
of the church that is at Cenchrea, that you receive her in the Lord, as becomes
saints, and that you assist her in whatever business she has need of you, for
she has been a [helper] of many, and of myself also" (Rom. 16:1,2). These
two verses provide a good model for a letter of commendation.
An alternative to a letter
of commendation is found in Acts 9:26,27 where Barnabas personally
commended Saul of Tarsus to the believers in Jerusalem:"When Saul was
come to Jerusalem, he [tried] to join himself to the disciples; but they were
all afraid of him, and believed not that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took
him and brought him to the apostles, and declared unto them how he had seen the
Lord in the way, and that he had spoken to him, and how he had preached boldly
at Damascus in the name of Jesus."
Letters of commendation have in
large measure fallen out of use today. But they still serve an important
purpose, both of introducing a visiting brother or sister who is in fellowship
in another assembly, and of expressing the unity that exists among the
assemblies. This writer would encourage each Christian assembly to reinstitute
the provision of letters of commendation to believers visiting assemblies where
they are not well known.
The ministry of Paul. The
apostle Paul did not confine his ministry to one assembly. In addition to
helping to establish assemblies of believers in many places, he revisited most
of these plus many others in order to build up the saints through ministry of
the Word of God. He also wrote letters (called "epistles" in our
Bibles) to a number of them, addressing problems specific to each one. In his
epistles to the assemblies, Paul often sought to remind the saints of their
unity with all of the other assemblies in the Church as a whole:"The churches
of Christ salute you" (Rom. 16:16). "Paul … unto the church of God that is at Corinth … with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus
Christ our Lord" (1 Cor. 1:2; 2 Cor. 1:1). "I have sent unto you
Timothy … who shall bring you into remembrance of my ways that be in Christ,
as I teach everywhere in every church" (1 Cor. 4:17). "As the Lord
has called every one, so let him walk. And so ordain I in all churches" (1
Cor. 7:17). "Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given
order to the churches of Galatia, even so do you" (1 Cor. 16:1).
The help of assemblies one for
another. A particular manifestation of the interdependence of assemblies in
the early Church was the way the different local assemblies helped each other:
"Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store,
as God has prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come. And when I
come, whomever you shall approve by your letters, them will I send to bring
your liberality unto Jerusalem" (1 Cor. 16:2,3; also 2 Cor. 8:1-15;
9:1-15).
Even though Philippi was not the
apostle Paul’s home assembly (he was sent out from Antioch, Acts 13:1-3), the
assembly at Philippi ministered often to the apostle’s temporal needs:
"Know also that … when I departed from Macedonia, no church communicated
with me as concerning giving and receiving, but you only. For even in
Thessalonica you sent once and again unto my necessity" (Phil. 4:14-18).
The uniting of believers of
various ethnic backgrounds. The earliest members of the Church were Jewish
converts to Christ. The first were 120 or so disciples of the Lord (Acts 1:15)
upon whom the Holy Spirit came on the day of Pentecost. These were soon
followed by 3,000 more Jewish men and women who responded to the preaching of
the apostle Peter (Acts 2:41). Later, Philip "preached Christ unto [the
Samaritans]." Many believed, following which they received the Holy Spirit
(Acts 8:5-17). Then the apostle Peter was sent by the Spirit to the house of
Cornelius, the Roman soldier. After Peter presented the gospel, Cornelius and
others in his household believed, and the same Holy Spirit came upon them as
well. The Jewish believers with Peter "were astonished … because that on
the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Spirit, for they heard
them speak with tongues and magnify God" (Acts 10:45,46).
There had existed a longstanding
animosity between the Jews and the Samaritans, the latter being largely made up
of stragglers from the ten tribes that broke away from the tribes of Judah and
Benjamin during the reign of Rehoboam (1 Ki. 11:31; John 4:9). A similar enmity
existed between the Jews and the Gentiles (Luke 4:24-29). But God arranged
things to show clearly that the same Holy Spirit that brought the Jewish
believers into the Church, the body of Christ, brought the Samaritan and
Gentile believers into that same body.
The apostle Paul emphasizes the
oneness of Jewish and Gentile believers:"He is our peace, who has made
both [that is, Jew and Gentile] one, and has broken down the middle wall of
partition between us … to make in Himself of two one new man, so making
peace; and that He might reconcile both unto God in one body … and came and
preached peace to you [Gentiles] who were afar off, and to those [Jews] who
were nigh. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit unto the
Father" (Eph.
2:14-18).
The apostle further emphasizes the
importance of maintaining unity between Jews and Gentiles in the body of Christ
by beseeching the Ephesian believers that they might "with all lowliness
and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love, endeavor to
keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" (Eph. 4:1-3).
There is not one body or Church
for Jews and another for Gentiles; not one Spirit for Jews and another for
Samaritans; not one Lord for whites and another for blacks; not one faith for
males and another for females; not one baptism for Americans and another for
Asians. Rather, "There is one body, and one Spirit, even as you
are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one
faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all" (Eph. 4:4-6).
The resolving of differences
between assemblies. The unity of assemblies in the early Church was further
demonstrated when "certain men who came down from Judea [to Antioch] taught the brethren and said, "Except you be circumcised after the manner of
Moses, you cannot be saved" (Acts 15:1). A delegation of brothers from the
Antioch assembly, including Paul and Barnabas, went to Jerusalem to discuss
this matter with the believers there. "And when there had been much
disputing, Peter rose up, and said unto them, Men and brethren, you know how
that a good while ago God made choice among us that the Gentiles by my mouth
should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, who knows the hearts,
bore them witness, giving them the Holy Spirit, even as He did unto us; and put
no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith" (Acts
15:7-9).
After the brethren of both
assemblies resolved that the Gentile believers should not be required to be
circumcised, the assembly at Jerusalem sent a delegation to the assembly at Antioch confirming the satisfactory agreement reached on the controversial question.
In this account we find a wonderful
example of the care, concern, and unity that should exist among the local
assemblies in the Church, the one body of Christ. Satan hates this unity of
God’s people, and does all he can to disrupt and destroy it. What a credit to
both the Antioch and Jerusalem assemblies that the brothers took great pains to
resolve the conflict rather than deciding to split and divide over their
disagreement.
Summary. We have pursued
various lines of evidence from the New Testament Scriptures to demonstrate the
strong unity that existed among the many local assemblies of believers in the
early period of the Church.
1. Letters of commendation were
used to introduce visitors from other assemblies.
2. The apostle Paul, when writing
to specific assemblies, often referred to other assemblies.
3. The assemblies helped one
another in times of need.
4. Jewish, Samaritan, and Gentile
believers were all made members of the same Church.
5. Care was taken to resolve
differences in doctrine and practice that arose among different assemblies.
Even though the unity of
assemblies has been tragically smashed to smithereens over the past 2,000
years, let us endeavor, as far as we can within the limits of Scripture,
"to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."
In a later installment of this
series, after giving other characteristics of the early Church, we shall
explore from the scriptures ways we can best achieve at least a tiny degree of
God’s intended unity among assemblies.