THE ETERNAL CHURCH (part 7)

In this final segment of this series of teaching on the Eternal Church, I will attempt to review some of the main points as I see them. Please bear in mind that this has been a very brief look at the overall plan of God for His Church, which is the earthly "Body of Christ". One day soon this body will reach maturity and be ready for Christ to come back and claim her as His Bride, to rule and reign with Him as His eternal companion. As we have mentioned, when we look at the Church in her present condition of immaturity, we can easily see that much more restoration must take place to bring the Church back to where she was before the period of deterioration known as the "dark ages". We took a brief look at some of the Restoration movements that have occurred in the past decades since the time of Luther, but realize that (Acts 3:17-22) has not yet come to completion!

What Brother Hamon refers to as the "Structural Church", which came into being under the reign of Constantine, will have to give way to the "Spiritual Church", which is the true Body of Christ. This will have to be the work of the Holy Spirit, and will require a time of "Repentance" on the part of the complete Body of Christ. At the present time the Church has been so infiltrated by the spirit of "humanism", "materialism", and various other "isms", especially in the West, that this will not be an easy task for the Spirit! Possibly the only way for Him to bring the Church into a place of maturity, so that it will be ready for the return of Jesus, is to "start over" again as at the beginning that we see in the book of Acts. This would require a complete "Restructuring" of existing Church Denominations, which have been structured after the "Religious System" set up by Constantine centuries ago. Personally I can't imagine this ever happening in the near future, but we know that with God all things are possible. Right?

One encouraging development on the church scene, is the growth of the so-called "House Church Movement", or as some have termed it "The Church That Meets At-----home, or----address". This sounds like NT terminology like we see in (Rom 16:1-16), and other places. Whether the Church meets in homes or some other type of buildings, the meetings should follow the guidelines laid down by Paul in

(1 Cor 14:26), and should be under the supervision of a "Plurality of Elders", as I have come to understand scripture. Under these guidelines, no two meetings would necessarily be the same, because our God is very creative! I believe this type of structure would facilitate spiritual maturity in believers, and would hasten the end-time harvest of potential Kingdom residents!

Sincerely submitted.

Gramp