WHAT THE CHURCH IS

 When approaching a new-found acquaintance, a Christians often asks, “Do you go to church?” or even “Do you have a church?”

That comes across as if you attend church, then you must be a Christian. Church is a place where Christians assemble.

The Israelites — the children of God — assembled: “The whole congregation of the children of Israel assembled together at Shiloh and set up the tabernacle of the congregation there. And the land was subdued before them” (Josh 8:1).

The “Church” (capitalized) had moved from sin in Egypt to Mount Sinai where they still sinned as they assembled. The Church was dynamic, following the Dynamics of God who appeared to them in a cloud by day and a fire by night (Exod 13:21). God was with them during the Exodus from Pharoah and Egypt that represent Satan and sin, respectively.

They Church are those who endeavor to abandon Satan and move away from sin.

Note that they were the Church — the people. The building was not a building; it was a tabernacle, or tent of meeting, just as God met with Noah, “The Lord appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre: and he (Noah) sat in the tent door in the heat of the day” (Gen 18:1).

Noah had “Church with God” when the Lord appeared to him. When the Lord appears, that is His manifestation as Jesus in phantom. Noah saw the Image of Jesus in a very different substance than how we see Him!

Meeting with the Lord is having “Church;” it is “where two or three are gathered together in My Name, there Am I in the midst of them” (Mat 18:20). There would have been Noah and his wife in his tent. God had gone with Noah in the Ark to his tent on Mount Judah in the Taurus Mountains. He was a traveling God who was with Noah ever since Noah had found grace 120 years before (Gen 6:8).

Adam and his mate also had Church with God. Not by coincidence, tabernacle (tent) worship was similar to worship in the Garden of Eden. The Tree in the midst of the Garden was the Tabernacle and the trees beneath where Adam and the woman dwelled beneath the canopies of trees that were their “tents.”

 

Figure 1: Taberncal Worship (hoshanarrabah,org)

The Tent of Meeting was the early Church after Moses was ordained by God to lead the assembly of the Israelites. Examine the figure closely; tabernacle worship was much like trees with their canopies, and  in their midst was a large Canopy, in the same manner as the trees in the Edenic worship.

In each place there was an assembly with God present. Adam and the woman met with God to have communion with Him, to wit:

¹⁵ The Lord God took the man, and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. ¹⁶ And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat, ¹⁷ but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it: for in the day that you eat thereof you shall surely die” (Gen 2:15-17) 

They were to commune with God and eat of His twelve fruits. Rather, they assembled beneath the Tree of Knowledge and ate its fruit. They had Church under the wrong tree and ingested the wrong knowledge. They communed with the wrong god, Lucifer who contended with God. Their ate unworthily, just as in wrong communion in the modern Church.

Adam and the woman went to Church to be in the presence of God and indeed only two were assembled with Him, thus making the “Church.”

Like those two who were coupled with God (entangled with God and each other), the three together made the Church because they were married and each one were the Image of God. — each had God in them.

Even in New Testament times, marriage is likened unto the Church with Jesus, the “groom,” and the Church, the “bride” (Mat 25).

Therefore, the “Church” is the bride of Jesus because it should be built in the Image of God like Christ is the Image of Him.

Marriage, or better said, “Holy Matrimony,” is having Church if God is in the midst of the two.

However, the first mention of the Church in the entire Bible is when Jesus was speaking to Peter: “That you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Mat 16:18).

Jesus, not Peter, is the “Rock” (Mat 21:42 — the “Stone.”). Peter is “lithos;” he is one of the many pebbles, not a rock. The Church was built on Jesus and the evidence of that came from Stephen in his soliloquy: 

³⁰ There appeared to him (Moses) in the wilderness of mount Sina an Angel of the Lord in a flame of fire in a bush.

³¹ When Moses saw it, he wondered at the sight: and as he drew near to behold it, the Voice of the Lord came unto him, ³² Saying, “I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Then Moses trembled, and durst not behold.

³³ Then said the Lord to him, “Put off your shoes from your feet: for the place where you stand is holy ground…” 

³⁷ This is that Moses, which said unto the children of Israel, “A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; Him shall you hear.”

³⁸ This is He, that was in the church in the wilderness with the Angel which spoke to him in the mount Sina, and with our fathers: who received the lively oracles to give unto us…” (Acts 7:30-33,37-38)

 

Moses, like Adam and Noah, as well as Abraham, had Church.

Moses met with The Angel of God on Mount Sinai with all the Israelites assembled at the base of the mountain. Thereon stood Moses in the middle of the mountain with the “Tree of Life” burning before him. There were no tents, no buildings, and no music. “Church” was Moses with God with the assembly beneath them both.

The Prophet, Jesus, would be like Moses, “like unto me,” as Moses said. There on Mount Sinai was the antitype of Jesus and the Burning Bush who as it turned out would later reveal Himself as the backside of God.

The “burning” represents action. Moses represented the Image of God as the Light of God was reflected onto him, God was Invisible (a Phantom Presence), and the fire His Dynamic in action. The meeting on the mountain symbolized the Godhead and those assembled below them, the Church, according to Stephen.

With that background, the Church was created for Adam and Eve, and it was created “very good,” even glorious since it was founded on the Image of God — the Rock of Salvation. Speaking of Jesus, the psalmist wrote, “He shall cry unto me, ‘You are my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation.” (Psalm 89:26).

The Father is the “Rock of Salvation” as the name Jesus exemplifies… “Ya(hweh) saves.” Jesus is the “Rock” — the firm Thing — that is God. When scripture says “rock,” it implies real estate or physical images.

Wherever Moses went, there was God with him and his people. Hence, since Jesus is “Immanuel” — “God With Us,” then pre-incarnate Jesus was with him as the “Word” (John 1:1-14).

When Yahweh spoke to Jesus from the burning bush, the Voice that he heard was the Dynamic “Word” that would manifest itself in the person of God, Jesus.

Moses had God with him. He was not God but had the authority of God. What God told Moses became the Law and Moses even carried the Law in his hands; then he placed them in the Ark of the Covenant where God met with them to have Church. The Law on the tablets of stone were the “Rock” of God, Jesus. The Law was the cornerstone of the ancient Church as well as the material Image of God.

Jesus came to fulfill the Law. Jesus said about the Law, “I Am not come to destroy, but to fulfil (the Law)” (Mat 5:17). The Law became Jesus, the “Rock.”

The Light, or Dynamic, of God sat on the Mercy Seat of the Ark and Jesus was the Law within the Ark. The Godhead was revealed in the Tent of Meeting with the Light of God atop the Ark, that when stopped, revealed the Phantom of God with the Image of God within the Ark.

The Church is when God stops to reveal Himself as the Godhead, or Holy Trinity.

You must believe in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; the latter the Dynamic of God to be part of the Living Church.

As written herein, the “Church” pre-existed time, and in the end, “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” for it is an eternal Institution whose Covenant is written on Stone by the Finger of God (Jesus) for eternity.

So, what is Holy Matrimony so significant in the Law? It too began before time existed in the Garden and is meant to be eternal. [1]

Now for some fact-checking about the Church; Paul wrote about the it: 

¹⁹ Now therefore you are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; ²⁰ and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone; ²¹ In whom all the building fitly framed together grows unto an holy temple in the Lord… (Ephes 2:19-21) 

Who built the foundation of the Church? The apostles and prophets. Not only Peter and the gang of twelve but all those patriarchs who came before them: Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Joshua, and all the priestly prophets. They are the “foundation” of the Church, and it was not built on rock but saints and their fellow travelers in the household of God.

When Moses met God on Mount Sinai, that was the foundation of the Church. There was no building or even a tent. It was Moses under the celestial dome in the Presence of the Godhead with his people assembled beneath them.

The “saints” are those dead in Christ.

Moses died. He was in Christ because his face glowed with the evidence of it. He was acting as God and for God in the manner of Jesus. He was carrying “Jesus” with him as the Law which, according to Jesus, hangs on the Law of Love.

Jesus is Love! It is His “Virtue,” or Dynamic as it was with Yahweh in ancient times.

Note that the foundation of the Church were “saints.” The Church was built long before Peter and was built on Moses and even Adam. The faith of our fathers is the foundation of the Church and likewise the apostles who had enough faith that they died for the sake of God’s Name, Jesus.

The Church, according to Paul, has nothing to do with any building or any other material construction. It is there but invisible. The Church is the “household of God” or an assembly of those whose family name is “Yahweh” — “The Name” (Ha Shem).

A “household” are the members of the same gen; those who came from the same genetic father. Father God is the household’s — the Church’s — Genome. It was built in the family name “I AM” who Jesus declared is Himself.

Jesus is the Cornerstone of the Church, not some real stone laid by human hands. He is that Rock from which the entire Church has its datum. The Church was built according to the measurements from Jesus Himself.

Jesus, according to John, created all things (John 1:1-3). He laid the foundation of the Church way back in the Garden of Eden. The Church, I repeat, pre-existed time!

Jesus always was. He was the Cornerstone. That Stone was laid before time began: Jesus, speaking to His Father (The Genome, or “Shadow” within Himself), “Father, I will that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I Am; that they may behold My glory, which You have given Me: for You loved Me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24).

Before the foundation of the world was before time existed. Everything, even the invisible Church, was built on Jesus before time ever began!

The Church was built on the Glory of Jesus — the Tree of Life — before the foundation of the world. Its “structure” represented the Godhead itself — the firm things in the Garden on which the Church was built. It was not a church of wood nor stone, but the Image of God and “lively stones,” or as Paul wrote to Peter, “You also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ” (1 Pet 2:5).

Thus, the Church is a spiritual house that has no real estate at all, and its purpose is to offer to God the sacrifices of your own souls… souls that are acceptable to Jesus on behalf of the Father.

The “Church” is a “spiritual house.” It is like a building, but of different substances and fabrics.

Christians are the lively stones as measured from Jesus the Cornerstone. All the “pebbles” that make up the spiritual house must fit together with each other to the datum of Christ. Hence, the “fabric” of the Church is love of God and others.

The Church is the tenets of Jesus as the basis with the Christians themselves the construction. The work of building the Church are the twelve fruits of the Spirit. They make the Church, and they are: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance (Gal 5:22-23) and three more in the Latin Vulgate Version of the Bible to make twelve Church constructs.

They were the fruit of the Tree of Life, which the reader is reminded, was the first spiritual Church.

So far, the subject matter has been about what the Church is and should be. Tomorrow, the commentary will be about what the Church is not.

 

 

 

 

 

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[1] In my book, An Awesome Quantum God, I provide evidence that the Garden of Eden existed before time even began.