IS OFFICIAL, OR FORMAL CHURCH MEMBERSHIP IN A LOCAL CHURCH ACCORDING TO SCRIPTURE? – PART 1
What is church membership? What does the New Testament teach about church membership? Is this a requirement for us in local churches or must we submit ourselves to a practice of man and denominational systems that want to impose their own membership on people? And are they correct to do that? We shall look at these issues and examine what the New Testament teaches about membership in the Body and the body.
BEFORE WE GO ANY FURTHER, THIS MUST BE SAID! The purpose of these four postings on membership is not to create trouble. It is the last thing I want. I love to explore church practices and consider them according to scripture. This time I am doing church membership but in past times I have done baptism and matters of eschatology. I would love to do modern “music” in churches and I know that is a really hot potato.
All I want is that we look honestly at scriptures and dig into the passages. The Bereans were commended for studying the scriptures and that is an excellent commendation for us to do as well. It is honourable to do so, and then let scripture speak to us, whatever outcome we will hold to.
When we carefully examine this matter, and if we can conclude that the New Testament has a definite stand on it, then would it not be very, very wrong for us to submit to an invention of man that is not from God; or to neglect something God requires? Has God given us enough light on this issue so that we can know definitively where we stand?
Just to make things very clear from the start, I find it most difficult to justify any position of official or formal membership of a local church from all the scriptural references I will do. Because I said that, don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Be of an examining mind.
[1]. THE TWO CHURCH MEMBERSHIPS IN THE NEW TESTAMENT -
[[THE FIRST ONE]] – THE MEMBERSHIP OF THE BODY OF CHRIST
This membership is vitally important for connection with God; to be born anew; to become a child of God; to be saved by the blood of Christ. This is the official membership taught in the New Testament, and may I say, the only one you will find. Here are the critical verses –
{{1 Corinthians 12:12-14 “Even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ, for by one Spirit we were ALL BAPTISED INTO ONE BODY, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit, for the body is not one member, but many.”}}
Baptised by one Spirit into one Body, the Body of Christ, The Church. This is Spirit baptism, not water baptism. The Greek tense is conclusive. It is a once for all operation that is not repeated, and the only baptism of the Spirit known in scripture. Some claim there is another baptism of the Spirit but the Greek will never allow that. There is an operation of the Holy Spirit we know as the infilling, or being filled with the Spirit, and it is a continuous one in a Christian’s life.
Through that baptism we all have official membership IN the Body of Christ, members one of another and with our Lord Jesus Christ. The purpose of this baptism of the Spirit is to unite all believers into ONE BODY, and that is for unity, for the CHURCH is one; The BRIDE IS ONE; the HOUSEHOLD of God is one; the PEARL Christ bought at greatest price is one.
[[THE SECOND ONE]] – MEMBERS ONE OF ANOTHER IN FELLOWSHIP WITH ONE ANOTHER
Look at these verses – {{Ephesians 5:29-30 “for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, BECAUSE WE ARE MEMBERS OF HIS BODY.”}}
Being members of His Body makes us members one with another and may I add, members with my fellow Christians in Nigeria, Kenya, Tonga, United Kingdom, etc. Often in the New Testament it is this loose membership that is mentioned. There is nothing official about it we must therefore do, because the official part was done by the Holy Spirit when He baptised us into one Body.
[2]. THE EARLY CHURCH – ACTS 2:47
I intend going through all the significant passages mentioning members. I am sure before we end this study, we should see this issue more clearly.
To begin this analysis, by way of introduction, there is one verse we shall consider. {{Acts 2:47 “praising God, and having favour with all the people, and THE LORD WAS ADDING TO THEIR NUMBER DAY BY DAY, THOSE WHO WERE BEING SAVED.”}} Luke is very careful here in how he states this fact. In talking about the church at Jerusalem, Luke says that IT WAS THE LORD WHO WAS ADDING to their number day by day. The Lord added them in, not man, nor did they submit to any man-made regulation on church membership before they could enter, and have their names put on rolls, etc.
It was the Lord who added to their number. It is the Lord who adds to the fellowship of His people, who makes them “members”, not man, and this excludes any notion of a separate, OFFICIAL membership. The Lord added to the church and this is sufficient. Further to this we have a very telling verse, verse 44, that informs us that all those who believed were together and HAD ALL THINGS IN COMMON.
This is an extremely important verse for it sets out the ground of collective fellowship, which is “THOSE WHO BELIEVED”. {{Acts 2:44 “ALL THOSE WHO HAD BELIEVED were together, and HAD ALL THINGS IN COMMON,”}}
I am going to move to this serious issue later but I just leave a question here. “How can ALL believers have ALL things in common when in a lot of churches, official membership is required else you can’t go to business meetings; can’t have any input; can’t vote, and are looked on as second class citizens and considered as non-committed?” We will come back to all that.
This is the very heart of the fellowship where the Lord added the people in to his local church, and the ground for that was stated simply – “those who believed”. Jerusalem at the time of Pentecost was the only local church in existence. We are then told that those who were added by the Lord had all things in common. There is total equality in a local church fellowship when the Lord adds to it.
We would conclude that in a local church, for Jerusalem was a local church, it is the Lord who adds the believers, and each one has all things in common. It is of the devil to divide God’s people in any way into separate status groups, or function groups, in a local church, where some are considered worthy of greater rights than others because some have undergone the ritual of becoming official members of the local church. It is similar to the error James opposed where a man with a gold ring and good clothes had greater rights than others in the church, where the ones with lesser rights had to sit in a lower place.
There is nothing more reprehensible when a system of man discriminates in Christ’s body to teach that some members have more rights than others, basing this on an artificial membership over and above what the Lord has made for us. Acts knows no man-made membership rules or procedures, or man-made function of the rights of members (“believers” according to Acts 2:44). The ones saved had all things in common. Man’s inventions have no place in God’s economy. Why then do you or churches, or anyone else, oppose what God has taught by practice?
[2]. THE CHURCH AT ROME – MEMBERS ONE OF ANOTHER - ACTS 2:47
{{Romans 12:4-6 For just as we have MANY MEMBERS IN ONE BODY and all the members do not have the same function, so we, WHO ARE MANY, ARE ONE BODY IN CHRIST, and individually MEMBERS ONE OF ANOTHER, and since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let each exercise them accordingly: if prophecy, according to the proportion of his faith;”}}
In these Roman verses THERE IS NOT A WORD ABOUT OFFICIAL or FORMAL MEMBERSHIP of a local church, or a church roll of members, or one list of members and one of adherents. The same is true of every church Paul wrote to.
These verses in Romans are telling us many things in relation to the exercise of individual gifts that we have been given as members of the body of Christ. This passage is so very clear in talking about the body of Christ; and the operative right of all Christians to function in their gifts, is because they have membership of the Body (Church). This passage is very clear that it is not an official membership of a local church which is ever considered, but membership of the Body of Christ.
In verse four, there are many members in the Church, that is, in the Body of Christ. What this passage is saying is that we are all members of that Body, but we do not all have the same function when it comes to gifts, for God has distributed gifts throughout his body, and the gifts differ one from another. However what we do have in common, is membership of that body, the Body of Christ. We are all on an equal standing, having being bought by the blood of Christ. There is not privilege given to any part of the Body or found operating in the Roman church, whereby some have a greater importance than others, or some have more rights than others, because they have consented to a man-made decree.
Verse five is most informative for it tells us that though we are many we are still ONE BODY IN CHRIST, and then Paul most interestingly says that individually, we are members one of another. There is a unity in the body of Christ, for all members share the Headship of Christ and therefore HAVE ALL THINGS IN COMMON, as we have just been looking at. We are members one of another. That is the only membership the New Testament knows, apart from membership in the living Church of Christ. TWO MEMBERSHIPS, but both instituted by God – our corporate membership of all believers in the Body, and a functional membership with one another as members of the body. God has set out only two memberships in His word and I will defy anyone to come forward and teach that there is a required man-made membership not according to the word of God.
It is man-instituted and we will look at why this might have come into being. We will look at that later. Many, many, many decades ago I was in a Baptist church and quite active but was not an “official member”. Although I was involved in the life of the church, prayer meetings, bible teaching, and everything else that others were involved in, I was not permitted to be at Business Meetings or Members Meetings where decision-making took place because I had not been through the ritual. I was “not up to the mark”. It was like the secret meetings of the Masons.
That sounds bad, and it was not nasty or anything. Everything was normal. BUT the procedure conveyed a message that there were the haves and have-nots all based on the requirements of an official membership of a church where WE WERE ALREADY members one of another because we are members equally in Christ’s Body. Some people talk about not being committed if you are not a formal member – horrible - more on that later.
For anyone to stand up and divide a local church membership into “crew and passengers” or into committed Christian “members” and non-committed Christian “adherents” according to official membership, all based on the matter of the acceptance of false and man made membership procedures, it is doing the work of the devil, not the work of God, for this divides God’s people and does not edify them.
There is only one body taught in verse four, and we are members of that body. There is only one Body taught in verse five and individually we are members one of another in that Body. Can you not see that for yourself? There is one Body which is the body of Christ and all the believers in this body are members one of another, members with each other, because we have a common membership. There is no other membership taught in the Word of God, and to do so, is to do great injustice to God’s word. The ONLY DIFFERENCE we have as members is according to the gifts that have been given to us TO BE USED IN THE LORD’S BODY.
There are those who falsely teach that by submitting oneself to a man-made membership in a local church, is an expression of your commitment to Christ. This is abhorrent, for our commitment is never to a local church according to systematic rules. Our commitment is to Christ. One does not have to submit to rules and regulations to prove a commitment. The individual Christian’s commitment is between himself and his Lord.
Our commitment to our Lord will have its outplay in the way our lives function, and if people see our commitment in our lives it is because there is that higher commitment to the Lord. We don’t commit ourselves to a local church like the Masons commit themselves to the lodge. This invention is most displeasing to God for it divides His body of believers. Those who bring division into the body of Christ are condemned by the Scriptures.
HOWEVER there is a commitment to the local church which is the expression of our major commitment to Christ, where the “local church” is that body of believers. We need to be committed one to the other and that is done in a church fellowship.
[3]. EXAMPLES OF GREETINGS TO THE CHURCHES
(a). {{1 Corinthians 1:2 “TO THE CHURCH OF GOD WHICH IS AT CORINTH, to those WHO HAVE BEEN SANCTIFIED IN CHRIST JESUS, saints by calling, with all who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours:”}}. Paul greets the ones who are in the ?????s?? (ekklesia) [the church] (the called out ones), the ones assembled together on their equal basis like the persecuted saints do in China in house churches, all on an equal basis of acceptance in the Lord. They have no time for nonsense. It comes down to humility. The church at Corinth was comprised of those who were sanctified (called saints); no such thing as any other depiction.
(b). {{Philippians 1:1 “Paul and Timothy, bond-servants of Christ Jesus, TO ALL THE SAINTS IN CHRIST JESUS WHO ARE IN PHILIPPI, including the overseers and deacons:”}}. This is addressed to all the saints in Christ Jesus in Philippi, the overseers (elders) and deacons being in leadership. There is no mention of members in any of Paul’s letters when he addresses the churches. That is because there was no such thing.
(c). The point has already been demonstrated, so these greetings are given without comment (you search in vain for any official membership):-
{{Ephesians 1:1 “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, TO THE SAINTS WHO ARE AT EPHESUS, and who are faithful in Christ Jesus:”}}
{{Colossians 1:2 “TO THE SAINTS AND FAITHFUL BRETHREN in Christ who are at Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father.”}}
That brings us to the end of Part 1. There are three more Parts to come.
