13. Members In Particular
Christ is small groups of people moving together in high regard and respect for one another, who always relate with each other in a Spirit of prophetic utterance and worship – in the demonstration of the Spirit and power. Christ is small groups of people moving together in one mind, in one heart, in one Spirit – as the second witness of Christ.
© Daniel Yordy 2010
Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there I am in the midst of them.
The testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy.
The truth and nature of God are filled with many tensions, seemingly opposing things always present and always circling around each other. These tensions in God are entirely different from those things outside of God that God is opposed to. There is no “tension” between legalism and grace, grace is always at war with legalism, yet not as a cosmic dual, but rather with grace always turning its back on legalism.
On the other hand, jeopardy is part of the nature of God, that is, God never forces anyone to love Him. Therefore, God’s creation is always free to love Him or not, as they wish. In the nature of God, grace and jeopardy always circle each other in a dynamic tension, you can never have one without also, fully, having the other.
The same tension exists between Christ in the individual and Christ in His body.
Christ is always revealed in me, as me, and through me as an individual. I am always a member of His body and am never found outside of a dynamic relationship with my brothers and sisters in Christ. Both/and, all the time.
There is a false gathering together in the modern “church,” manipulated and controlled by strong ministries who do not understand the nature and being of Christ. God has separated many of His own from that environment in order to reveal Christ in them, as them, and through them as individuals.
Jesus made a statement that helps us to understand why. He said:
“How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” And those who heard it said, “Who then can be saved?” But He said, “The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.” Luke 18:24-27
The Needle was a small opening in the city wall of Jerusalem right next to the main gate. It was used by travelers who arrived at the city gates after they had closed for the night. The Needle was just big enough for a grown man to squeeze through. A camel could pass through the Needle. First, everything it carried had to be removed off its back, then the camel was persuaded down onto its knees. If the camel cooperated, it could hobble through the Needle on its knees. Few camels were willing to do that.
In a similar way, people who are attached to institutional churches, to sects and denominations, people who live under some sort of “covering,” are not free to embrace the wonderful reality of Christ living as us, of the tree of life. I drove home from a visit to the fellowship I once was a part of with my heart lifted up in thanks, over and over, that I did not have to “ask permission” to believe that Christ is my life; I have no other life, permission that would never be granted.
And so, God had to separate us from sectarianism in order to reveal to us the beginning of the tree of life.
However, that places us in a place of great jeopardy.
Christ is not a bunch of isolated individuals, each rejoicing in the “as me” part of Christ.
Christ is a many-membered body.
A problem we have in the English language is that our second person pronoun is used for both singular and plural. Four hundred years ago, “you” was plural, and “thee” was singular. Now, “you” is used for both. When Paul said, “Christ in you, the hope of glory,” he did not mean “thou,” he meant “you,” plural, a body of believers gathered together.
Yet we are also members in particular. Both/and, all the time.
Collectivism and group-think swallow up the individual into an ungodly externality of force and manipulation. Individualism is every man for himself in opposition to the nature of Christ.
The body of Christ regards each individual person with the highest respect, giving each one a place of honor to give to the many what God has given each. Yet each individual member moves in honor and regard, in a bond of one Spirit with the other members of the body, both in the universal body of Christ and in the local body, small groups of believers who relate to one another in the Spirit.
There is no “Christ” separate from His body. God has placed many of His elect into a season of solitude. I believe that this season is temporary and exists only out of necessity. The great danger we face is to imagine that it is permanent or reflects the desire and nature of God.
For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. 1 Corinthians 12:12
The world is the system of relationships that exists between selfs living for (or against) self separate from God.
The kingdom of God is the system of relationships that exists between Christ in one and Christ in another.
One person cannot be or know the kingdom of God.
The systems of relationships that exist in the world all take place in a spirit, the spirit of disobedience and rebellion, the prince of the power of the air.
The systems of relationships that exist in the kingdom of God all take place in a Spirit, the Holy Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ.
And so the true nature of Christ is two-fold. First, He is found in the gathering together, and second, He is expressed as prophetic utterance, that is, the Spirit of prophecy.
Let’s look at another dynamic tension in the nature and being of God, the Spirit and the Word.
Christ is the Word God speaks. The gospel is the “Logos” that is preached to us. Yet the gospel is not word only, but also the demonstration of the Spirit and power. The gospel is not 50/50; the gospel is all Word and all Spirit, dancing around each other in a continual dynamic relationship.
In exactly the same way, Christ is a many-membered body. Christ is found in the gathering together and He is found in the ministration of the Spirit. Christ is not 50/50; Christ is all the gathering together and He is all the prophetic ministry of the Holy Spirit, dancing around each other in a continual dynamic relationship.
The New Testament, all by itself, is not the Covenant we have with God. By itself, the New Testament is a dead letter that can do nothing more for anyone except kill them. The Spirit of God, by Himself, is not the Covenant we have with God. By Himself, the Holy Spirit, poured out on all flesh, as God says, can be nothing more than confusion and every man for himself, each one following the whims and inclinations of his own heart.
The Covenant we have with God is all the New Testament, and all the outpouring and leading of the Holy Spirit, all the time, never one without the other.
So we have a group of several people sitting in a living room together. They are gathered together, as Jesus said, and they are reading the Bible and talking about Bible things. Yet the dynamic Spirit of God, prophetic utterance, and revelation is absent. This group of people is involved only with the outskirts of the gospel and Christ, no matter what words they talk.
Then we have a bunch of people scattered across the world who, let’s say, relate to each other through Facebook. They speak encouraging words to each other, each one following the dynamic of the Holy Spirit individually. Yet direct personal involvement, walking together side by side, submitting one to the other, honoring and loving one another is absent. This group of people is involved only with the outskirts of the gospel and Christ. (That doesn’t mean God isn’t doing wondrous things even through Facebook.)
Yet here we are – and God has placed us in this season. What we must know is that it is only a season, born of necessity inside the vanity of this world; it is not the kingdom of God.
Christ is small groups of people moving together in high regard and respect for one another, who always relate with each other in a Spirit of prophetic utterance and worship – in the demonstration of the Spirit and power. Christ is small groups of people moving together in one mind, in one heart, in one Spirit – as the second witness of Christ.
Christ is not in me or as me or through me as an individual all by myself. Yet, as members of one another, Christ is revealed in me and as me and through me as a member in particular of His body.
Now we come to the Gathering to Life.
The writer of Hebrews warned us that as we approach the day of the revelation of Jesus Christ in all fullness, the temptation to abandon the gathering together of the saints will grow. He (or she — I like the idea that Priscilla wrote Hebrews) warned us not to allow that temptation to find place in our lives.
The present revelation of Christ that is coming upon us as individuals scattered across the face of the earth is not really coming upon us as individuals. It only appears that way to us. Rather, what is happening to me is bound by inseparable cords, by the same Spirit, to what is happening to you. And all of it is moving towards the full manifestation of the gathering together.
That in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth – in Him. Ephesians 1:10
For wherever the body is, there the eagles will be gathered together. Matthew 24:28
Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.
I want to emphasize, here, that the body of Christ is not some outward form. There is a commitment to one another, yes, but not the outward commitment of the world. We have one obligation only, and that is to love one another.
Rather the essence of the body of Christ is life. Living in the tree of life, in Christ our life, in seeing only Christ when we look either at ourselves or one another is the only way to know the life of the body.
In the same way is ministry in the body of Christ. Christ gives gifts of ministry to individuals to give to the body, and each individual’s gift differs from the other. But that “ministry” is a function of life only. If we could see from the heavens one moving in the gift Christ has given to bring life and encouragement to others, we would see a flow of life coming out of that one like a river. Regardless of what form that ministry takes, whether prayer, or teaching, or miracles, or helping, or loving, or just serving coffee, in Christ, it is all a flow of life.
But what we will not see, if we could see true ministry from the heavens, is bands of obligation, of structure, of payback, accompanying that ministry of life.
In other words, life gives, without thought of return or future “opportunity” to give. The ministry of Christ does not create an external structure that guarantees future ministry opportunity. The ministry of Christ is always releasing others into their ministry in Christ.
Yet all ministry of Christ is faithful to give as the Lord gives to them. There is a huge difference between faithfulness year after year and organizing an external structure. All true “structure” in the body of Christ is the bands of life and love that flow mutually back and forth, regardless of the levels or types of gifting.
The kingdom of God, then, is the movement of life and love, of encouragement and help, between individual people who themselves each live fully in the tree of life, in Christ as their only life.
Now, this movement of life and love can take place using Facebook, most certainly. But we know that the fullness of the kingdom manifest through us as a body of people is so much more than anything we have ever known.
Let me list again the four elements of the life of Christ in our experience.
1. Christ is every Word God speaks.
2. Christ is the One who lives as me.
3. Christ is a Spirit of Power.
4. Christ is a Corporate Body.
These four aspects of who and what Christ is are listed in a numbered order, but they should be seen only as dynamic currents of life and reality always in full operation at all times and in every way. We may focus on one or another in order to know Him as He is, but we never see these things as separate from each other, neither does Christ reveal Himself in fullness except as all four all the time.
More than that, you can take any two and see those two things are always in a dynamic tension with each other. And you can see that dynamic tension expressed all through the Bible. I have spent much time developing an understanding of 1 and 2, Christ as every Word God Speaks and Christ as the One who lives as me. But in this volume I must do my best to focus more on the dynamic tension of Christ as a Spirit of Power and Christ as a Corporate Body, yet never separate from the other two.
You can never have one without also having the other. There is no such thing.
Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there I am in the midst of them. — The testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy.
These two realities of Christ must always be together in dynamic tension, never one without also the other in fullness.
I want to underline a couple of points and make a couple of claims here before you read the next chapter – “Eunuchs Only Need Apply.”
First, I don’t really know how I can write about these things. I have tasted of Christ in Power and as a Corporate Body as that which has come to me through others, yes. And from that tiny taste I speak. But the things I write about here are not my present experience. I write for one reason only and that is that I want them to be my present experience. God has given me a “little stick to wave in the air” — writing some things down on paper, and so I will do what I can with all the enthusiasm inside of me. I will write about those things I want to see in fullness in my experience. If that is all I am able to do right now, I will do it as I wait, entwined together with God, upon Him to make what He says real in power.
Second, the practice of erasing things God says that we don’t like is more widespread than people realize. Some would like to take the truth, “God is love,” and use it to “hide” and “clean up” all the “unloving things” God says in His word. There are those who would take the truth of our full rest and union with Christ and use it to erase the revelation of Christ in power and as a corporate body.
I am not immune to those desires. But I will say once again that I will have ALL that God speaks in the Covenant I signed with Him and He with me. I will have all of it in fullness in my present experience. There are some who feel the same way.
Here, then, are two claims that I must make. Two claims that sit as a foundation for the great Gathering to Life that is taking place even now, issuing forth from the heavens, from the heart and passion of God, and entering into all the realms of earth in the present day.
First, Pentecost IS a pre-requisite for Tabernacles. There is no entering the Holy of Holies without the full provision of all the anointing and sustenance, all the light and bread, given in the Holy Place.
Without the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, that is, without engaging the Lord Jesus Christ to immerse you fully into the Holy Spirit, with all the attendant gifts and operations of that Spirit in the knowledge and demonstration of power, yes, even including the gift of tongues, there is no possible way to comprehend, to know, and to move with the revelation of Jesus Christ as He arises in His people, in the new man, in the dawning of the age to come.
Certainly, the gifts and ministrations and operations of the Holy Spirit in power in believers have been misused in every possible direction. So what! Christians also kill each other, do we then abandon Christ? Let us care nothing for any misuse of God – except where, upon occasion, we can use it to contrast and therefore to see more clearly that which God meant when HE SAID those things.
Second is something I have abandoned for some years; I have avoided it, skirted around it, tried to ignore it, hoping that it wasn’t really the truth. I have seen it coming, a massive wall just ahead with a tiny door into the experience of Reality. I have known what is that door, but it, also, has been abused. There is nothing holy, nothing of Christ, that Christians have not made mincemeat of in one way or another. The only thing that must govern our hearts is the determination to know all that God meant as He meant it in every reality of the New Covenant.
And God has appointed these in the church: first apostles, second prophets . . . 1 Corinthians 12:28 — And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets . . . Ephesians 4:11
This is not a dead-letter or legalistic word, this is not some formula for church structure or hierarchy.
The revelation of Jesus Christ as it is in full reality is birthed through the apostolic. God sends the full reality of the revelation of Jesus Christ into this world through His elect.
The power dynamics of the Church of Jesus Christ, of the Kingdom of God, of the gathering together is known by individual members, by members in particular, ONLY as it comes to them through the apostolic, through the olive trees through which the anointing oil flows from the throne of God into the experience of life on this earth.
Please stay with me, as I intend to share, as best I can, what that means. It is not “apostles”: it is the apostolic — a people who are sent.
And the only possible way I could ever contemplate this reality is from upon the sure and certain foundation, from out of the intimacy of personal knowing, that Christ, in all ways and at all times, is the One who lives as me. That my Savior, the One upon whose breast I lean my head, has taken it upon Himself, out of His deep respect and high regard for me, to conform Himself to every part of me in all of my human weakness and limitation and lack.
Christ is my life; I have no other life.