There was an almost imperceptible, gradual process that took place in the Patristic era that changed the nature of the church. When one looks at the end-result of this process in the Roman Catholic Church and considers its New Testament starting point, the vast difference becomes apparent.
Two major factors moved the ekklesia (the termed used for the New Testament people of God) to the "church" (the institutionalized organization), and these factors were interrelated. The factors were the development of a formal legal authority and the development of the sacramental view of salvation around the New Testament ordinances.
The sacramental view of salvation developed around both the Lord's Supper and Baptism. The saving grace of Christ would be experienced in these rites controlled by the church. In our discussion I will center only on baptism because of the Anabaptists thesis that baptism is an initiatory rite for entering the ekklesia. If time were available both ordinances would receive scrutiny.
1. The Institutionalizing of the Ekklesia
It was said that "Christianity had two great battles to fight in the Patristic era. The first battle was without--the battle against persecution. The second battle was within--the battle on discipline and purity. It has been said that one battle was won and the other battle was lost, but I want to disagree with that conclusion--I believe that both battles were lost. The church that won the battle over persecution was not the same church as the New Testament ekklesia. The ekklesia had already changed; the church's very nature had been altered. Here are the reasons for this changed nature:
a. Syncretism--The Problem of Growth
In the first three centuries, it is estimated that between 5 and 10 million people were won to Christianity. This was a tenth of the Roman Empire. Gal. 4:4 needed to be understood as more than just the New Testament. Sometimes the church would triple overnight. The need for leaders was great. Early leaders in the church were from Judaism, but later Judaism rejected the Christian message. The Judaic leaders had an Old Testament background and were able to perceive and to interpret the New Testament message, but the leadership that came from the Gentile converts had a pagan background and had understandings that were vastly different.
The Gentile converts, being from a different culture, lacked an understanding and means of communicating the gospel. How long does it take for Christianity to filter into the sub strata of a culture? I don't know. But the resulting syncretism had two emphases--some church rites carried with them magical overtones, and the external signs of church membership were magnified.
b. Purism--The Problem of Discipline
A large number of persecutions transpired in this time period before legality was offered to the church. Most of these persecutions were local, but there were two exceptions which had Empire-wide overtones:
- The Decian persecution in 250, which produced the Novations.
- The Diocletian persecution in 303, which produced the Donatists.
The question that arose from these persecutions was how the church should deal with the lapsed. Should they serve the church as members? Should they be served the Lord's meal? Should they have full membership as if they had never renounced their faith? Suppose one's husband had died because of faithfulness to Jesus Christ and another's husband had renounced Christ under the same persecution, was freed, and later came back to the church proclaiming a faith in Christ? How should the people of God deal with the matter? How will the widow of a martyr feel toward the lapsed? What is the role of the lapsed in the church?
The answers to those questions affected the very nature of the church. Augustine used the wheat and tares analogy (Mt. 13:24-30) as a basis for his solution.
c. Civil Religion--The Problem of Dominance
The Edict of Milan (313) made Christianity a legal religion. When Theodosius I made Christianity mandatory in 380, he required the baptism of every person a rite of citizenship to the Empire. Where at one time no Christian could serve in the military because of their allegiance to a someone greater than Caesar, now every soldier had to be Christian to serve--a remarkable change.
- Leadership in the churches was now based on organizational skills and loyalty to the state, where before Constantine leadership had been based on spiritual gifting.
- The persecuted church becomes the persecuting church. Those not professing Christianity were often debarred from offices.
The statement "the church exists only where the bishop is present" became the teaching of the church, and represented a fundamental difference with the New Testament "where two or three ..." (Mt. 18:20). This position may be traced back to Cyprian, but was actualized after Constantine. Its purpose was to correct and prohibit heresy, and in turn it became a heresy itself, at least from the Anabaptist point of view.
d. Authoritarianism--The Problem of Schism
Two forces were at work here. The first was the modeling of the church after the government, and the second was the development of church leaders having a mode of authority originating in the culture. This use of authority intruded into the spiritual organism and brought a different kind of nature to the church--rank and formal authority of jurisdiction. The church had become a hierarchy.
2. The Sacramentalizing of the Ekklesia
When the ordinances were conceived of as a sacrament, a fundamental change in the structure of the ekklesia took place. I would love to use the word "sacrament" here if it meant what it did when it was first used, an "oath of loyalty" (Tertullian).
- The use of "sacrament" as a conveyer of God is a failure to understand the doctrine of grace. Grace conveyed through specially ordained channels becomes the norm of the church in the post-Constantinian period. This approach suggested an impersonal and quasi-material force or sub-personal pneumatic power conveyed through ordained channels. Grace in the New Testament, on the other hand, was understood as being the initiative of God.
- The use of "sacrament" as a conveyer of God is a failure to understand the doctrine of baptism.
- Baptism as a conveyer of God has Christ's baptismal waters filled with a sanctifying potency.
- Bishops began praying over water before baptism so the waters would have the same potency for those they baptized.
- Infant baptism developed next. Baptism in the New Testament and in much of the Patristic period had a required catechism, but this cannot be done with infant baptism.
Infant baptism obscured the New Testament doctrine of baptism. Water baptism was viewed as a cleansing from original sin and confirmation as a means to conveying the Holy Spirit. Division between catechism and baptism developed as a way to handle the problem. Augustine fleshed out the doctrine, relating it to original sin. Under the impetus of Augustine infant baptism spread throughout the church. From the fifth century on, infant baptism became the general practice of the church. It was only challenged by a few isolated communities.
Baptism, through its application to infants, progressively lost its New Testament significance until it could be used as a mere outward sign without any inward spiritual significance. At the time of the Anabaptists, it was primarily a mark of citizenship.
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I have and still continue to oppose the institutionalization of God's Ekklesia (his called out one's) to what it has become and has been for 1900 years, every since Constantine.
The earliest (institutional) church Fathers, such as Origen and Cyprius and more became the great downfall of everything Christ set to establish within the heart of men - not in a building, an organization or any institution. First, there was the setup of the Nicolations ( Clergy over Laity) The declaration that the Bishop was equal to God, then their was the church-state union to form the "City of God", then the sacraments - Baptism, Communion and anything that was to practiced became only the right of the bishop to perform. Then there were the qualifications to be a Christian, a complete year of catechism training and on and on- until you had Popery at it's height. Then the reformation came along, and all that was provided out of this was the right for people to read the Bible for themselves, and determine what the Lord had to say to them. But less, the laity get too smart, the Pope was exchanged for a Pastor - the same power structure as that of the Bishop/Pope. Martin Luther did nothing to change the heresy of popery but to add a Bible that could be read by the people, but the Pastor still held the magic wand in his hand for it's interpretation, the giving of sacraments, etc.
Thus the AnaBaptist were born- not only a people that could see clearly where all of it came from but a people that wanted to return to the teachings of Jesus and hold onto the traditions of the Apostles rather than that of men. There were sitters rights where upon any meeting, anyone could speak- because they were all of the priesthood of believers. They would only Baptize converts, they believed in the revelation of the Word to each believer. They stood but not for long, for just as the Judaizers, and the Church-State union had destroyed the very teachings and love of Christ with the conquering under the sign of the cross, these people were soon totured and killed by the reformers themselves. Calvin and Luther hated them. They especially hated them for sitters rights doctrine. The AnaBaptist believed in the Sermon on the Mount, they were non resistant and believed not in war or fighting back with their enemies just as Jesus did, so it made it easy for the Babylonian institutional church reformers to destroy them as easy as it was for Origen and Cyprius, Augustine and all the other supposed church fathers to change and distort the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to begin to whittle at the truths laid down by the foundation of Christ and the building of the Apostles.
Today, the same heresy continues and I speak out about it constantly and I am persecuted as they and the early Christians were. I am made to be a second citizen Christian and even a Cultist for my strong belief in the Word of God over the traditions of men. Isn't this what the Lord said, would happen, "if they persecuted me, they will persecute you".
Who was he talking about but nothing less than those same Temple and High Priest worshippers then that persecuted Him, the institution of Judaism. The church folks, their Pastors, etc.
There has been over 1900 years since the church went wayward, why does it seem to continue with it's hypocrisy when church history proves it's origens are pagan, yet they continue to say they are the true EKKLESIA while denying all that Jesus ever taught in truth. Why, because it has always been easier for men to box god up in a building, and place his power in one individual who could interpret or commune with god, while the worshippers recieved their blessings and cursings and instruction from a high priest.
The greatest misnomer has been to call Christianity, Judeo-Christian beliefs.
Paul's fight was constantly against those trying to make it Judeo- Christianity- there is nothing Judeo about it, as presented by Christ. He was as anti-Judeo (the religion of the Jews then as it remains today) as could be. Thus they killed Him- Lord of Lords and King of Kings, the Messiah, was crucified at the hands of the church leaders and church people of His time. I am not being anti-semitic against the race of Hebrews, for we all have come out of the loins of Abraham and that would be counter to my own self preservation. I am branch on the tree. I am telling you, that Paul was well aware and John, and Peter and the rest, knew exactly what would happen when they were dead and gone, so they told the believers to hold onto the traditions they had handed down to them, and not to be swayed by the Judaizers and the Gnostics. The wolves were waiting in the corridors and they rushed the halls the minute the Apostles were dead and created a heresy which is still alive on Planet Earth.
What heresy you ask? The heresy that God still lives in buildings and has a high priest for each one to do the sacraments, interpret the scrolls and speak for God. It is heresy and will remain so.
I speak the truth in love, I know many individuals that are clergymen and I love them with all my heart, and makes me sad, when so many of them, have even admitted to me, they know that what they do is really heretical, because they have studied church history as well as I have, they have studied the Talmud and the Kabbala and the Torah and they have read the church fathers writings, and studied biblical archaelogy and know the truth, but because this is their profession and tithing propagates the system, they can't escape the Temple/Priest role less their familes starve or they are unableto find work with their hands.The money system and the power keeps it all propped up and running, this is why the institutional church will go on, because, it runs like the world and is the world in it's practice and anything that bows down to the enemy will be successful in this world. To come out of her - would be mean sacrificing filthy lucre, and power and recognition. The heart of the evil would have to be cut out first, and that evil is the lie of tithing. Once the money is gone, the leaders will leave, once the building is gone, the people will meet in their homes. God forbid that, that could lead to a bunch of Christians having real fellowship and real communion and real prayer and real exhortation, and real love, and real worship by their lives exemplifying Christ. In other words, ASSEMBLY would become real as it was real for the earliest believers, who went from house to house, breaking bread and fellowshipping, and praying for one another. True elders, teachers and pastors would be revealed with a servants heart and not a postiional title. All with out any human leader ( ruling over others) and the only PRIEST they need is Jesus, our high priest for eternity. As real as it was for the AnaBaptist before the persecutors came along. Yes, the heresy is still alive on Planet Earth. I remain a RADICAL REFORMATIONIST and I am humbled by it, as it took the Father a very long time to make a modern day Baptist into what I am today, and He isn't finished with me yet, but I press on to the goal.
Dr. J
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