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This is the Church

by

A T Jones

Part Five

The Fulness of God

(All the emphasis has been added by the Protestors)

The church

What is The Church?

What does the Word of God say that The Church is.

It is by the Word of God only, and by the study of the Word of God only, that anybody can ever know what The Church is. It is The Church of God, not the church of men. And it being The Church of God, only He can possibly know or tell what it is. And the church, being only of the thought and conception of God, when He expresses that thought in telling what The Church is, then that thought in telling what The Church is, then that thought as expressed in His Word, will be as far above any conception or thought of man's, as God is above man, and as the mind of God is greater than any mind of man.

Therefore, in the study of this subject, as well as any other subject of the thought and Word of God, the first thing for every person to do is to accept and follow implicitly the following instruction:

"Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; . . . for My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts." Isaiah 55: 7-9.

This being so, and "the things of God no man knowing but the Spirit of God," plainly it is only by the revelation of the Spirit of God that these things can be known by any man: by the Spirit of God taking these high and deep things of God and making them plain to us and putting them upon our minds and thus giving them to us as really our own. John 14: 26; 16: 13-15; 1 Corinthians 2: 9-12.

In this way, then, let us study the word and thought of God on what is The Church. What, then, does He say that The Church is? This:

"The Church is His body, the fulness of Him Who filleth all in all." Ephesians 1: 22-23.

The Church is the fulness of Him. Who is He, the fulness of Whom The Church is? Plainly only God, for it is "The Church of the Living God." What is the fulness of Him, whose fulness The Church is? What is the fulness of God, for The Church is the fulness of Him?

I might with profit to every one, stop right here in this study, and let each reader spend a whole month in thinking and meditating and studying on this one question only, What is the fulness of the Living God? For whoever gets the fullest and best view of what is the fulness of the Living God, will have the fullest and best view of what is The Church of the Living God: for The Church is the fulness of Him.

What then is fulness of Him? First of all, it is the fulness "of all in all;" for The Church is "the fulness of Him who filleth all in all." The fulness of all in all is simply the fulness of infinity. And the fulness of Him Who filleth all in all, is only the fulness of the Infinite One - "all the fulness of the Godhead bodily."

And again: "Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance . . . All nations before Him are as nothing: and are counted to Him as less than nothing and vanity." Isaiah 40: 15-17. How near to the fulness of all the oceans and seas is "a drop of a bucket?" And yet that is the measure of "all the nations" to the fulness of God - to the fulness of Him who filleth the all in all, whose fulness is The Church. Please read Genesis 13:16 and get the suggestion there of what is the fulness that is the Church.

Now please think on that "fulness of God" which The Church is, and then ask yourself, When The Church is all the fulness of God, then what kind of an idea of either God or The Church can any men have who think that they can "organize The Church" or "organize a church?" or who think that a structure of the pinhead conception of finite-minded, blunder-thinking, man can be The Church of the Living God, "the fulness of Him Who filleth all in all!!"

Is it not perfectly evident that any man who ever proposed, or thought of, "organizing a church" or of "organizing The Church," by that very thing shows absolutely that he has no possible correct or true thought of what The Church is or What God is?

The Church is the fulness of God: and the fulness of God manifest is The Church: so that the idea of The Church is the idea of God. A person's comprehension of The Church is his comprehension of God. In the nature of the case, whoever thinks that he can "organize The Church," in that implies that he thinks that he can organize the fulness of God: and so that he is above God. And that is exactly where the word of God places the one who first attempted it - "the man of sin, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God."

Such ones as that can organize the fulness of their god: and this very easily, for it [is] so small. And thus every man-organized church in the world, is the manifestation of the god of that man, just like any other heathen idol.

But when The Church is the fulness of The Living God, it is perfectly plain and conclusive that nobody but God Himself can possibly organize it. And when He organizes and builds His own Church in and unto the fulness of Himself - "the fulness of Him Who filleth all in all" - then it is equally plain and conclusive that the Church will be truly The Church that is the manifestation only of the true and Living God. The question of The Church and of the organization of The Church is just the same old world-old question of whether God shall be Himself in His own way and in His own place, or whether man-made idols shall be the respective gods of little cliques and coteries in men's ways and in the place of God.

Before you start the next chapter please think and mediate and pray on the question, What is the fulness of God - "the fulness of Him who filleth all in all?" For thus you will be studying what The Church is.

What is the church?

What is the Church?

"The House of God, is the Church of the Living God." 1 Timothy 3:15.

"The Apostle and High Priest of our profession was faithful to Him that appointed Him, as also Moses was faithful in all His House.

"And Moses verily was faithful in all His House as a servant, for a testimony of those things that were to be spoken after. But Christ was faithful over His own House: whose House are we if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end. Hebrews 3: 1-6.

"Ye, as lively stones are built up a spiritual House." 1 Peter 2:5.

"Ye are no more strangers and foreigners but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God: and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone.

"In whom, all the Building, fitly framed together, groweth unto an Holy Temple in the Lord: in whom ye also are builded together for an Habitation of God through the Spirit." Ephesians 2: 19-22.

"Ye are God's Building." 1 Corinthians 3:9.

"I will build My Church." Matthew 16:18.

The Church of God, then, is the House of God, of His own building, through Christ His own named Builder. It is built "an holy Temple, in the Lord," "for an Habitation of God, through the Spirit."

Now what are the dimensions of this House of God? How extensive must be its capacity, to be such a Temple and such a Habitation of God that it shall reflect and express "all the fulness of God?" And who could be the Builder? What man or men could possibly build "The House of God which is The Church of the Living God," that shall contain so as to express "all the fulness of God?"

Were not men long ago challenged up on this very point? Please read:

"Who is able to build Him an house, seeing the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain Him?" 2 Chronicles 2:6.

"Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee, how much less this house that I have builded?" 2 Chronicles 6:18.

"The Heaven is My Throne and the earth is My footstool. Where is the house that ye will build unto Me? Isaiah 66:1.

And this challenge is carried over into the field of Christian thought and things; and is repeated to hold up all who would be "builders" of The Church or in The Church which is "The House of God" - "You builders:"

"The Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands, as saith the prophet: Heaven is My Throne, and earth My footstool, what house will ye build Me? saith the Lord?" Acts 7: 48-49; 4:11.

Accordingly men, who undertake to build or to "organize" The Church or a church, in that very thing show their own utter ignorance of all that is The Church in truth.

And they never do build Him an house. Always they build to themselves an house where in the place of God, themselves shall sit and reign and rule utterly unlike God. No. The Church is the House of God, It is built only for the habitation of God, the place which He has made for Him who is equal with God, and therefore able and capable to compass and understand and truly express the thought of God in His "Eternal Purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord."

When this Eternal Purpose was purposed only in Christ Jesus, then it is utterly impossible for any other than Christ in person to be The Builder or the Organizer of The Church.

And so only it is: "He shall build The Temple of the Lord; even He shall build The Temple of the Lord; and He shall bear the glory," Zechariah 6: 12-13.

And "He" came and earned the position, and, by divine merit as well as by divine right, took the position of that Builder: "I will build My Church."

But "the man of sin," "the son of perdition," "the mystery of iniquity," soon came in, and with its working supplanted Him as the builder, and became himself the builder of what is proposed as "the church," but which these builders built only for themselves and for their own glory, in which always there has sat this "man of sin" above God, and "showing himself that he is God." 2 Thessalonians 2:4.

And the wicked course of that mystery of iniquity has been followed in the building of more others than there are days in the year: each one of them presented as the true Temple and the true House of God, but which in truth is only the habitation of men, who sit and rule there in place of God.

But the time has come, and now is, when the Mystery of God is once more to have its place above the mystery of iniquity: and this unto its glorious finishing. And this mystery is God manifest, "God manifest in the flesh," "Christ in men the hope of glory." And in this, again it will be, as at the first, that God only, in Christ only, by the Holy Spirit only, will be the Builder of His own House unto its finishing in its own native glory and beauty. Revelation 10:7; Ephesians 5:27.

And so it is written:

"Speaking the truth in love may grow up into Him in all things who is the Head, even Christ, from whom" and "in whom all the building, fitly framed together, groweth unto an holy Temple in the Lord . . . for an habitation of God through the Spirit." Ephesians 4: 15-16; 2: 21-22.

There is the Builder of The Church, the Organizer of The Church, and He is only Christ the Head.

There is the Building of The Church, the organizing of The Church, and it is all only from Him who is the Head, by the Holy Spirit.

And that is the House of God: a fit and becoming "House of habitation" for Him Who first "built all things," and "Whom the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain."

Where is the house that ye will build unto Me - "you builders" - saith the Lord?

oooOooo

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