The Prophet Thomas Jefferson
by Brian J. Hennessy
Part 1
It is often difficult for Americans living in the late twentieth century to relate to some of the patriotic fervor of our founding fathers. Their impassioned cries for liberty and self-government seem almost melodramatic today. We hear Patrick Henry, for example, shouting from the pages of our textbooks, "Give me liberty, or give me death!" - and we want to say: "Yo, Patrick, get a grip! There must be a more reasonable solution to this problem then you skewering yourself on a British bayonet!"
Yet, when we study more closely the history of our beginnings, we discover our forefathers really had no alternative. Britain had made it quite clear she would never give the American colonies the right to self-determination. For over a hundred years the colonies had been part of the British Empire, and although they'd enjoyed a large measure of autonomy, Parliament was now tightening the screws. Either the colonies submitted to the Crown's sovereignty, or they'd be made to bow by force of arms.
But Britain underestimated the resolve of the colonies. Times were changing. America was coming of age. Home rule was something that more and more Americans had now determined was their God-given right. Of course, there were a number of people who felt, given the alternative of a bloody, frightening war with the most powerful empire on the globe, that a little submission wasn't all that bad. After all, no colony in those modern times had ever successfully broken away from its mother country. These voices of rationalization became fewer and fewer, however, as events quickly progressed. After "the shot heard round the world' was fired at Concord Bridge, it was too late to turn back. The revolution was on.
A Word For Us Today
I was drawn to this decisive period in American
history when I read in the newspaper a quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson. The
quote, as I later learned, had been taken from a treatise entitled,
"Declaration of Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms," published on
July 6, 1775. In this treatise, Jefferson was urging young America to press
forward and throw off the shackles of the British Empire. The quote read:
"We have counted the cost of this contest, and find nothing so dreadful
as voluntary slavery. Honor, justice and humanity forbid us to tamely surrender
that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our
innocent posterity have a right to receive from us. We cannot endure the infamy
and guilt of resigning succeeding generations to that wretchedness which
inevitably awaits them... Our cause is just. Our union is perfect. Our internal
resources are great...We gratefully acknowledge, as signal instances of the
Divine favor towards us, that His Providence would not permit us to be called
into this severe controversy until we had grown up to our present
strength...with one mind (we are) resolved to die (as) freemen rather than to
live as slaves."
As I read
those noble words of Jefferson, I immediately sensed they were more than just a
rallying cry for young America against the British Empire. I felt they were also
a divine challenge to the Church of Jesus Christ today. For they could just as
easily be applied to the chronic struggle that the people of God have had with
another Empire that has lorded itself over the Body of Christ for centuries.
Namely, the institutional Christian church.
This Ecclesiastical Empire, which dominates almost every expression of Christianity today, rules through a form of government that was first instituted by the Roman Catholic Church. Unlike so many other Roman Catholic beliefs and practices which were found to be unscriptural and jettisoned during the Reformation, the government of the institutional church system was allowed to be carried over almost in tact. That government is a direct rejection and replacement of the government established by God as revealed in the Scriptures, which is to be Jesus alone ruling His people individually through the Holy Spirit. If such a complete overthrow of established authority had taken place in the kingdoms of this world, it would have been immediately considered high treason, punishable by death. The question is, by our continued allegiance to this unauthorized form of government, will we not be held just as accountable? "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom."
One reason God's people have tolerated the usurped rule of this Empire over our lives for these past eighteen centuries is because most of our gifted members have been a part of its established hierarchy. If the most spiritually learned among us act as if this is the way things are supposed to be, what is the rest of the Body to think? As a result, our corporate resolve to recognize and confront this problem has been continually undermined. But there are strong winds stirring today that suggest this may at last be changing.
The Great Uprising
As we know from our history books, the Church has not always been passively submitted to the reign of this Empire. In preceding centuries, when the abuses of the Empire were much more flagrant, a number of bloody confrontations erupted. These culminated in the great uprising of the sixteenth century known as the Reformation. The names of Wycliffe, Huss, Luther, Calvin and Tyndale are almost as well known and revered today by American Christians, as Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, and Henry. There were also many other unsung heroes who stood up in one way or another against the tyranny of the Empire, armed only with their courage and biblical truth. Many - if not most - paid for their brazen insubordination with their life's blood.
Although the Reformation indeed brought forth a large measure of freedom from
this tyranny, nevertheless, the Church never did gain her full independence.
Like prisoners who had broken out of their cells, but who still remained within
the confines of the outer prison wall, the Reformers took possession of the key
to their individual spiritual freedom, but did not press forward to obtain full
corporate freedom. They had won a great victory to be sure. Now any man by the
free exercise of his faith in the finished work of Jesus on the cross could know
true forgiveness from sin and taste the heady wine of eternal life. Yet they
were unable, or unwilling, to apply the Word of Scripture to bust through the
man-made outer wall of the organized church, and experience a full deliverance
from this worldly system of government. Instead, they simply modified and
adopted the traditional and unscriptural Roman Catholic concept of organized
church life for their own purposes and settled down again. From an
organizational standpoint, it truly was just a re-formation of the same old
thing.
Tragically, they didn't see how essential form is to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Everybody Needs Some Body
What the Body of Christ has failed to come to grips with is that the message of salvation through faith in God's work at Calvary (called soteriology by the theologians), although the heart of the Gospel, is not all there is to the Gospel. It brings us into Messiah ("Christ" is just Greek for the Jewish word "Messiah"), true, but then what? For just as a human heart cannot exist by itself, but was designed to be part of a human body, so too, a spiritual heart redeemed by the message of salvation needs the true spiritual body of Messiah to function in. If you transplant that heart into a body it was never designed for, it will not function as it ought to. And sooner or later the body will reject it. That's why a correct understanding of the form of the Church (called ecclesiolgy) is so vitally important because it teaches how each Believer fits into and functions within that spiritual Body. That means first realizing that the Body of Christ isn't an organization with an ascending hierarchy of leadership (as in Satan's Kingdom) - but an organism requiring a different type of leadership and relationship between members.
The headship, of course, was reserved for no one else but Jesus operating through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. It was not given to Peter. Or Paul. Or Martin Luther. Or Henry the VIII. Or the Pope. Or a local pastor. Or indeed, any man but God Himself. All the members of His Body would be considered as equals before Him. Yet each would have uniquely different roles to fulfill with varying degrees of anointing and authority. This Body would increase in stature as each part assumed its proper place and function in the Body, taking pains to maintain a loving relationship with the other parts. "Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him, who is the head, even Messiah, from whom the whole Body being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies, according to the working of each individual part, causes the growth of the Body for the building up of itself in love" (Eph. 4:15,16).
It was Paul who first called the Church a "body." And he was not using a metaphor. That is, we are not like a body. We are really and truly the present embodiment of the Spirit of Jesus. It was the first truth Paul learned really. When he was still called Saul and on the warpath against the disciples of the Lord, Jesus confronted him in a blinding light on the road to Damascus. Jesus asks, "Saul, Saul! Why do you persecute Me?" Paul's persecution of the Believers was shown as touching Jesus Himself.
Now the natural human body is an indispensable element of our identity, is it not? Comprised of body, soul and spirit as we are, it is the body that gives us substance and makes us uniquely visible. This truth can be applied to the spiritual body of Jesus as well. Which means for the world to see and recognize Jesus today it has to be able to see His body, which contains His Spirit. But what has it been seeing for centuries? Not Christ's Body, but an organizational entity that calls itself "the visible church" - a mixture of believers and unbelievers. Which raises this interesting question: If the institutional church is not the Body of Jesus - and it surely isn't - then whose body is it? Since the it claims to be Christ's body it reveals itself to be a false christ - the body of the spirit of anti-christ.
That is why it's so important that every member adhere closely, now more than ever, to the leadership of the Holy Spirit. Only in that way can He conform us all, individually and corporately, into the image and likeness of Jesus "Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure and stature of the fullness of Messiah; so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of men, by their craftiness and deceitful wiles." (Eph. 4:13,14).
To help build up this Body of interdependent members - all of whom are ministers of the most High God - God sent extra help. He called and equipped some members of the Body to act as apostles, prophets, teachers, pastors, and evangelists. We could think of them as "assistant coaches." And the rest of the Body as the "team." These "assistant coaches" (who were also part of the team) were not to introduce their own plays but follow the lead of the Head Coach, Jesus. Nor were they to gather individual players around themselves and cause divisions on the team. Nor were they to ever lord it over the players the way the coaches of Gentile teams do. If they wanted to be successful coaches, they should just go about their work with diligence, zest, and humility. They should, without compromising their God-given authority, treat all members of the team as more important than themselves. They should do the work of an apostle, teacher, prophet, etc. - but leave the titles aside and let others use them if they wish. Their work will soon reveal who they. In short, they should put the team first, and their own careers and reputations second.
It was a far cry, I'm afraid, from
the way things turned out.