CHRISTIANITY – ITS ORIGINS AND IDENTITY

Christianity is commonly held to be the practice of the christian religion in a variety of denominational forms, a perception based not so much on any scriptural understanding as on social or religious tradition. Thus the christian community would be identified in the minds of many as those religious institutions collectively referred to as Christendom, Christianity and Christendom being regarded as one and the same thing. But what saith the Scriptures, the only authority that matters?

Christianity does not stand in isolation in divine purpose so we will trace its emergence in Scripture in the context of God’s dealings with His people through the ages.

Commencing in the book of Genesis, we observe that God made all necessary provision for the first man and woman. The garden planted eastward in Eden was the ideal environment for them. Designed and formed by God, it was the place on earth of divine presence and fellowship (Gen.2:8).

Then, following the failure of Adam and the judgment of the flood, we see that God called out a people for Himself through Abraham, the man of faith (Gen.12:1-2). He made provision for them also, first in the desert and then with their own land. We note in the book of Exodus that precise instructions were given to Moses concerning the camp and the tabernacle, whilst manna was provided to sustain them. Thus Judaism was established as the divinely-appointed religious system of gathering and meeting between God and His people. Significantly, God referred to this people as His garden (Isa.58:11).

But Israel also failed God and in the book of The Acts we see Judaism being set aside in divine purpose, consequent upon rejection of the Messiah and the testimony of the apostles. In parallel with this, God was calling out a new people, a spiritual nation comprised of believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. This process began at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was manifested and Jews believed the gospel preached by the apostles (Acts 2). These early Jewish believers met in Jerusalem and then, as the gospel spread to the Gentiles, believers gathered in various localities such as Thessalonica, Corinth, Ephesus, etc. These local churches or assemblies were regulated by elders and by special spiritual gifts given by God in lieu of the completed Scriptures, all under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

So God had again made provision for His people, this time spiritually by way of divine revelation through the apostles and in particular Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles (Gal.2:7). Thus believers gathered in this simple way, to the name of the Lord Jesus, constituted the newly-designated place of meeting on earth between God and His people, a spiritual building now and house of God in character, the ideal environment for the new man. Significantly, this new local, spiritual edifice of believers is also referred to as God’s garden (1 Cor.3:9 – AV “husbandry”).

This was Christianity at its inception, what it always has been in the sight of God and what it remains today – a divine system of independent local churches or assemblies subscribing to a body of doctrine (Jude 3) in corporate practice of the christian faith.

But what of Christendom, a conglomerate of man-devised religious systems using the Bible and the name of God but denying in practice the divine principles of Christianity laid down by God for believers? Clearly, by any Scriptural measure, it is not of God. More than that, it is a counterfeit of the real thing, designed by the adversary to lead astray and confuse believer and unbeliever alike, and in this it manifestly succeeds. We can therefore state, on the authority of God’s Word, that Christianity and Christendom are not synonymous -–they are mutually exclusive.

It follows that all Christians should be participants in this divinely-appointed sphere of gathering – it is their birthright. Sadly, many are to be found in counterfeit Christendom. Part of the heavenly church, the body of Christ they are, but participants in Christianity, as God intended, they are not. The call to them is to come out of what is patently not of God (2 Cor 6:17).

Meantime, believers who do gather in the spiritual environment that God has provided for His people should value the privilege, being in the fellowship out of intelligent conviction, understanding that, had Christendom not been devised, there would only ever have been localchurches or assemblies. There is a need for the trumpet to sound clearly (1 Cor.14:8) regarding this fundamental truth so that saints are in no doubt that, by the grace of God, they are in the right and only place on earth to worship and serve Him.