DID JESUS ESTABLISHED ANY CHURCH ? - By Huberto
Rohden
Yes - and no.
It depends what you mean by church.
The Greek word ekklesia, and the Latin word
ecclesia, repeatedly occurs in the Gospel.
The English translation is church.
But what is mean by church today, is something totally
different from the original meaning of this word. Church is for us, a
hierarchical organization with its human head and legal constitution. Aquinas
defines the church as a perfect society, endowed with executive, legislative and
judicial power. The church, according to this theological concept, developed
since the fourth century, is a state organization whose management obeys the
same rules of any other government.
This is the juridical aspect of the visible (material) church
.
In the Gospel, however, the word church has nothing to do with
this concept. The whole Gospel of Christ gravitates around the core concept of
the "kingdom of God" or "kingdom of heaven" - and this kingdom coincides exactly
with what the Gospel mean by church, but the invisible (within man)
church.
The Fifth Gospel of the Apostle Thomas, discovered
by Bedouins in Egypt (1945), and translated into many languages, explicitly
addresses this kingdom of God, in the world and man, this true church, real,
internal, invisible.
The Master explicitly denies that the kingdom of God can be
discovered by compliance and obedience of rules and dogmas; that the kingdom of
God has a geographic location and we can direct to this or that address saying:
- "Here or there is the kingdom of Heaven".
After, summarizing everything, he ends: - "The kingdom of God
is within you".
The translation "among you", just like a social phenomenon, is
false; either the Greek text of the first century, as the later Latin text says
"is within you", i.e., within the human soul. With this, the Master denies that
it is a social organization.
The Kingdom of God lies potentially within every human
creature, and man must be aware and develop this kingdom.
The true church of Christ has nothing to do with a social or
juridical organization.
Why then the visible church was established?
The visible church was established by men, by theologians, and
can coexist with the invisible church, thus as the body is the material aspect
of the spiritual soul. But it would be absurd to say that the soul has a head,
legs, arms, etc.
The soul or the essence of the church is the internal kingdom
in each individual; the body or the existence of the church, can be a visible
society, as long as this does not look to be superior than that, but living in
perfect harmony as a visible manifestation of the invisible church. In case of
conflict between the church body and the soul of the church, we must abandon the
body, asserting only the soul.
The invisible soul of the kingdom of God can manifest through
various visible bodies - provided that there is no identification between the
soul and the body, between the internal kingdom and the external
organization.
Since the majority of humanity is spiritually immature, the
metaphysical message of Christ appears in the form of child pedagogy, as is the
whole theology. This pedagogical interpretation of the cosmic message of Christ
is a necessary social malady, because most of humanity is not, and never has
been able to understand and assimilate, the spirit of the invisible kingdom -
but it's better for the poorly evolved spiritually masses to have a pedagogical
discipline, than be without it.
Already in the first century wrote Paul of Tarsus to the
Christians: "To those among you who are infants in Christ, gave them milk to
drink - but to adults who are in Christ, gave them solid food".
Twenty centuries were not enough for many of these children to
become adults in spirit. The evolution goes with minimum steps in maximum
spaces!
Unfortunately, many Christian leaders have interests - social,
political and financial - to keep Christianity in its infantile stage of blind
obedience, because no leader can govern spiritually adult men. The spiritual
adulthood is autonomous and self-determining, and not slavishly obey orders
established by needs and passions. If all Christendom was spiritually mature,
there would be no need for the existence of a visible church, because the church
is essentially invisible, the kingdom of God within man. In the direct
proportion which grows the “Christocracy”, descends the “clergicracy”. And when
the Christocracy has reached 100, the clergicracy will descend to
0.
It seems that John, in Revelation, triumphantly predicted this
Christocracy when he wrote: "There will be a new heaven and a new earth, and
God's kingdom will be proclaimed upon the face of the earth".
Spiritual leaders can and should be guiding the people, like
indicator arrows along the way, but not intermediaries between man and God. But
to act as counsellors and guides for others, man must realized within the
kingdom of God. Otherwise, he is another "blind guide leading the
blinds".
It is not enough to say and
do - it is necessary to be, in spirit and
truth, what we recommend to others.
For comments: dawn.3rd.heaven@gmail.com
