#349 Kingdom: The Doctrine of the Church And the Kingdom

Hundreds of Doctrines But One Kingdom

It becomes necessary to explain our love and concern for the church with the apparent critical attitude that appears in these short documents. It is precisely because of our love and concern for the church that we are disappointed in the lack of development in the lives of the church people. When we speak about the church we are not referring to a building somewhere in which some people gather on Sunday. We are not even speaking about a denomination. The church is a corporate group of believers that have actually experienced the Life of the Lord Jesus Christ within and where Jesus Christ [the Spirit of Christ] has taken up residence within. Our criticism is not directed to people but to a system that assumes it is the church and attempts to exercise authority that ONLY belongs to the Head, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Unfortunately, this church system is overseen by people. Therefore, when we criticize the system it appears that we are judging and criticizing the people that are responsible for propagating the system. Many of these “leaders” just inherited a system that they find impossible to change because this “system” has become the standard for the industry. The “system” is just carrying on the “tradition of our fathers.”

Our statement that not all believers are part of the Lampstand Church or the church which is His body has been interpreted that we are just speaking about a select and exclusive group that are accepted. This interpretation is quite understandable because we emphasize the 7 Outer Court experiences which precede the Holy Place life and ministry. Those “believers” who are not interested in ANY growth experiences cannot participate in the Lampstand Church. We are not emphasizing some “exclusivity” but that to participate in the church which is His body requires more than just believing something about Jesus. However, we emphasize that all who press on to know the Lord are candidates for the Lampstand Church. The fact that we eliminate the casual believer and the lukewarm and carnal Christian from the Lampstand Church [which is hammered out of one piece of Gold] offends certain people.

In this document I will try to identify some of the ridiculous things that we have seen and also did in these past many years. I am certainly not innocent of these perversions of the reality of the true church. Most of us know the doctrine of the church and the doctrine of the body of Christ. Most of us have studied 1 Cor 12 and 14, the Book of Ephesians and Colossians so we have established certain opinions about what it says about the body and how it functions. We also are certain that Christ IS the Head of the body and that believers are members of His body. In other words all of us have established doctrines based upon what we have read or thought we have read. However, our doctrines are based upon our interpretations of what we have read. Many doctrines are just based upon a natural understanding of natural words that are written in the Bible. In other words the natural man can be very effective in establishing an “absolute doctrine / truth” based upon a natural understanding of spiritual things.

I also did that same thing and fellowshiped with people that came to the knowledge of truth that way. After many years I now see that my “doctrines” have changed and my absolute truth is no longer absolute. I have excluded people from fellowship because they didn’t agree with my doctrine. After we see that our doctrines are NOT absolute but truth that grows in dimension [ height, depth, width and breadth] as we grow in our spiritual life, we become more tolerable of various doctrines.

It is not that we now compromise truth but that we can accept other Christians that don’t see things exactly the way we do. The real reason we are more tolerable is we see the limitation of doctrine and the necessity to move on into His Life. Our doctrines must finally submit to His Life within us. If our doctrines represented “All Truth” there would be no more necessity for the Holy Spirit to now continue to lead us into ALL truth. In other words our “truth” changes with further revelation and understanding of Christ who IS Truth.