Unfaithful Members

Today’s study is not going, I don’t think, to be a very long one. It is an examination of a topic that I believe I have addressed some time before, at least in passing, but I believe we can use a reminder about it. I call it “Unfaithful Members,” and it deals with why we take the Covenant called “Church Membership” so seriously.

From what I recall of the last study, we examined Acts 2 as our foundation Scripture; and that may be a good place to pick up this discussion. We read, then, from near the end of the passage that I referenced in last New Moon’s study:

Acts 2:41, 42

There are a few things to keep in mind here. First, these men are described in previous verses as “devout” Jews. This means that they were, and had been, faithful to all that they knew was true. As members of the Hebrew religion, they had carefully observed all of its traditions, and they knew of its principles. Clearly, since they were in Jerusalem, they were obedient to the appointed times. And yet, when they heard further light, it is worthy of intense study what the Spirit led these men to do. The Acts 2 sermon, the first preaching done in the New Covenant under the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit after Pentecost, is one that we have referenced in a number of CSDA teachings, and for a variety of reasons.

The circumstances of that sermon, the words that Peter says, and the reactions of the hearers, have been used to demonstrate the Victory message, the Sabbath rest principle, and the corporate accountability concept that so many seem to miss in the Bible, among other things. In the study this past Wednesday, I mentioned that it says the new converts continued in the apostles “doctrine and fellowship,” giving equal weight to both of those concepts. It is not enough, contrary to what many people think, to merely have the right doctrines. We read from James:

James 2:19

This does not, of course, mean that the devils “have” the faith, it means that they know the faith. They know what truth is, but have rejected it. They know the right doctrines better than any preacher alive today, except for those who are actually living all the truth. Knowing the truth is not enough, and neither is accepting it part-way. Some may say, and I have met and spoken to people who say this, “I have accepted all the truth, so I don’t need any Church to tell me what to do and think.” And you can hear the contempt in their voice when they say the word “Church.” But all this really means to me is that they do not truly know Christ.

Surely, they may have many doctrines right, but a part of the faith is the unity of that faith. Unity with Christ means that if we are one with Him, and He is one with the Father, then we are one with Him AND the Father. In fact, we read this in the Gospel of John.

John 17:22

But then, is Christ only one with the Father, or is He one with something else?

We read:

Mat 19:4-6

Unfortunately, by the more modern, and terribly flawed, concept of what “Christianity” is, there are many people who are trying to “put asunder” what Yahweh has joined together. It may be educational to point out that the divorce rate for nominal Christians is just as high as it is for the average person, and this shows just what we are talking about in this study – there is much less respect for “covenants” than there has been in the past.

We read, again:

2Cor 11:2

And a third passage:

1Cor 6:15-20

Here we see Paul speaking of fornication, and he points out that when one unites with another person in an intimate act, we become “one flesh” with them. So how can we, who are spiritually “joined” to Christ, participate in fornication, which would join us to an unfaithful woman? A harlot cannot be joined to Christ, and so Paul is using what is called the “transitive property” to show that we cannot unite ourselves with a harlot and still be Christians.

The transitive property is something from math and logic, which says, if A = B, and B = C, then A = C. In this case, if we are one with Christ and one with a harlot, then Christ is one with a harlot. Since this cannot be, we have it as a Christian duty to avoid fornication. And this can be applied, and should be applied, to any act of willful sin.

Being united with Christ means being united with our brethren. This is because Christ is one with the Bride, the Body of the brethren. In fact, back in John we read from chapter 17, verse 22, but the next verse, let me read them both together.

John 17:22, 23

So we see there is a continuous thought there, a perfect oneness between Father and Son, Son and Bride, and members of that Bride one with another. I need not point out that fellowship without the right doctrines will not help anyone… one may join any Sunday keeping church for that, or even some pagan religion, if “fellowship” was the only important factor. But it certainly bears teaching these days, that doctrine without fellowship is much the same as faith without works.

But going back to the Hebrew converts of Acts 2, we notice that it says they “continued steadfastly”
in the apostles’ doctrine. But not their doctrine only; they also continued in their fellowship. Now, what does this mean? That is actually one Greek word, proskartereo, and it means to stick to, to be devoted to.

Now recall, these individuals were not from Jerusalem. They had come from many different places to attend the Feast. And yet, the apostles, at least until the persecution broke out, were exclusively located in Jerusalem. For the new converts to continue in the apostles’ doctrine would simply mean to follow their teachings, and share them with others. But to continue in their fellowship… it sounds to me like this demanded quite a sacrifice.

I do not know if all three thousand of those individuals converted that day took up permanent residence in the city, but it seems that all of them stayed for some time, and perhaps many remained afterward as well. Communication in those days was not nearly as easy as it is now, and to learn doctrine from someone required your physical presence with them. Those devout believers gave up their homes, their jobs, perhaps their families in some unfortunate cases, to continue in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship.

They understood, because they had been faithful to the Hebrew religion – which was designed to teach them this – and they learned the importance of a Covenant. Even though it was falling apart spiritually, the Jewish Church continued to hold vital principles for salvation, right up until the point when the leaders betrayed the people by uniting with pagan Rome.

We read of a relevant incident:

Mark 12:41-44

Usually, this parable is employed the way that Christ intended at that moment, to show that it is not the overall amount, but the amount it costs an individual, that determines the value of charity, and the value of sacrifice. But there’s another, and very clear, teaching that may be drawn from it as well. The woman was in a religious organization that was about to betray the Messiah. She knew nothing of it, and so for a time would be protected by that ignorance, even though Christ had already begun to call people out of it, and very soon all would have the responsibility of abandoning it in favor of a renewed Bride. But we find that what she did was praiseworthy, because it was done with integrity. It was done out of respect for the covenant.

When someone joins the CSDA faith, one of the things we ask them to do is to break ties formally with any previous religious organization that held their official membership. Most of our current members were formerly in the mainstream SDA church, and so we have written letters to the congregations that kept records of our membership requesting to be taken off the books. For some, this was an easy process. For others, such as myself, they would not provide me with any form of documentation to say I was no longer a member, so according to Biblical precedent, I wrote that former Bride a “letter of divorcement” and took out a public notice in the newspaper that I was renouncing my membership.

But why do we make such a big deal about this? Why not just say, “Ok, I am not a member anymore,” and continue on from there. It is because we take Church Membership seriously, and the principle of it, not just the fact of it for our Church. In other words, we don’t just take CSDA membership seriously, we take ANY church membership as seriously as we would a marriage, because we believe that this is how Yahweh views it, and we can provide evidence for it in such places as the parable from Mark 12 that I have just read.

Just as a husband cannot say to a wife, “We are divorced,” and go on to marry another (there are religious and even legal angles to consider) so an individual cannot just say to a Church, “I am not a member” and move on to another. This is an issue that, while some think we give it too much attention, should probably receive even more. The 144,000 follow the Lamb wherever He goes, and this means we must have strict integrity to every principle of contracts and faith.

Now the question might arise, when did Christ “divorce” Judaism? Clearly, it was at His death, for we read in Romans 7: Rom 7:1-3

Now, this brings up another question. Some may say, “Keep reading. Doesn’t this passage indicate that we do NOT need to actively remove our name from previous covenants, if we have ‘died to self’ and been born again?”

So we read the next verse:

Rom 7:4

There are two levels of operation here, and it may take some spiritual eyesight to see it. Christ was, in the flesh, a member of the Jewish Church. He died, in the flesh, actually, put to death BY that Church, and as such was no longer bound to it. We are, in the flesh, joined to other Churches if our names are physically in their membership books. If we ‘die to self,’ that is a spiritual death, not a physical one. We are still alive physically, and thus although we are renewed spiritually, we still have a work to do to cleanse that material attachment. As it is written:

2Cor 7:1

But now, if we follow exactly what happened with Yahshua, you’ll notice that His physical death did dissolve that material attachment. It would be, then, that those who have died in the faith, not understanding fully this concept, would be able to pass the judgment of the dead, even if their names were on the record books of a fallen Bride. But now the 144,000 are not going to see death; they will never have a physical “ending” to this body, and therefore any remaining “filthiness of the flesh” in a last-day convert would translate directly into character flaws that would prevent them from achieving the full and necessary measure of sanctification.

This, then, is one of the key issues for the 144,000, I believe, because, like the judgment of the living, it is not something that could properly be applied to any generation but the last. We, because we will not see death, must actively renounce any material and spiritual covenants we have made in order to “marry” Christ as the collective Bride upon His return. Again, there are two levels of operation here. Yes, Church membership is a spiritual covenant, but it has a material covenant as well. You were baptized in physical water. You sat in physical chairs giving support to the organization. You, if you were faithful, paid real tithes and offerings to help run its ministries. Yes, it is spiritually binding, but that tie has a physical component as well.

And speaking of support, tithes and offerings, now that we see how important this issue is… for the last day saints it is one of sanctification, and thus salvation… we should with renewed vigor witness to those who have fallen into some very common errors regarding the respect of the covenant. These are the “Unfaithful Members” that this study is really about.

Some people, when they hear this message, say, “Oh, yes, I agree with everything you teach, I just don’t want to leave my current fellowship.” Or, “I agree with all that you say, but I would like to try and help the Church (they usually mean the SDA Church at that point) from the inside.” First and foremost, our message is one of separation from the world and unity with the saints. So if they want to remain separate from the saints and united with the world, and worldly Churches, then they have not truly accepted the message, have they?

But even overlooking that for the moment, let us assume that they are telling the truth and, as far as they know, are in agreement with the doctrines inasmuch as lifestyle and worship go.

We can not, we can never, give respect to such thought as these individuals have, who wish to continue supporting their current organization (with their presence, if not their actual resources) while claiming to be of the same mind as ourselves. They simply are not.

Some say, “Well, since I found out about the Trademark Lawsuits, I haven’t given tithes and offerings to the Seventh-day Adventist organization.” Understand, this is a sanctification issue. This is about the faith of Yahshua. What did Yahshua praise about the widow with the two mites? It was her faith. She gave of herself to the organization she believed was the right one (and at the time, still was). Those who withhold their resources while retaining their membership are not any better off for it. They are not more holy, and no closer to the truth. All they are now are bad members of bad Churches. They are unfaithful members of unfaithful Brides, and thus they are twice-cursed, twice traitorous.

If they sit at home, if they fellowship with other home churches, and give their finances to charities of their choosing – understand, even if they give their tithes and offerings to US – if they are still on the books of another Church, they are Biblically covenanted to support THAT Church with their tithes and offerings! That may sound amazing to some… and we are certainly not telling people to take back their tithes and offerings from us to put into the coffers of corrupt religious organizations. No, not at all... we are saying just the opposite. The CSDA church does not want money; it wants souls.

We want what Yahshua wanted, the undivided love and fellowship of our Spirit-filled brethren. Now, just as 2000 years ago – and just as 4000 years ago under Moses – Yahweh has put in place a system by which we can contribute our time, energy and finances to the support of the work. Yahshua told the men standing by Lazarus’ grave to roll away the stone, He didn’t tell angels to do it. We have a part in the workings of the Plan of Salvation. But what we want is for people to be faithful to their covenants, or no matter what ELSE we may teach them, we haven’t taught them enough to perfect character.

Unfaithful Members are not going to enter the gates of Heavenly Jerusalem. And I do not mean unfaithful members of the CSDA church; I mean anyone who is false to any covenant to which he or she is still bound. This is one of the characteristic evils of the last days:

2Tim 3:1-5

Two words there, “trucebreakers” and “traitorous” describe what many today consider to be virtuous states of being! They think it is a great and holy thing to pass judgment on a Church of which they are a member, and decide with their Spirit-enlightened mind that they are going to stay home from those terrible services, or not pay for the legal department of some Body of which they are still members. That is the catch – they are still members. If they never set foot inside a building owned by the corporation, or donate a cent to its operating costs, they are still corporately responsible for what that organization does… and they are further condemned as trucebreakers and thieves for failing to be true to their commitment.

We read in the Gospel, Mat 18:18

And in another place: Luke 11:2

As I covered a couple studies ago, there are ways “out” of truces without becoming a trucebreaker. Remember that an agreement can nullify a commitment, and a covenant can nullify an agreement, but it takes one covenant of greater authority to overcome another covenant. And this we are invited to do, as Creation Seventh Day Adventists. We enter this commitment with our eyes more open than in any previous covenant, because we are covenanting to live out the Gospel as never before, victorious in our daily walk. We make a commitment to a Godhead that most have never clearly seen before, having heard and accepted obscuring fables such as Trinitarianism or Unitarianism. We enter into this commitment publicly, at least as publicly as our previous commitment, because we are giving a clear testimony in a visible way of our new Covenant with Yahweh and His Son to mankind and the universe.

And because of this, we have received the authority to renounce our previous commitments, and unite ourselves fully with the Messiah as the People of that new Covenant.

We work now, moving forward, united as were the early apostles and their converts, in doctrine and fellowship, for just as we would not fellowship with a people whose doctrines are flawed (unless we were actively trying to evangelize them), we could not likewise support them in any other way.

We have a responsibility to remove ourselves from previous truces, lest we be found trucebreakers, and we must be able to explain this point to others, telling them, “Have you come to disbelieve the teachings of your Church? Then why would you be in a Covenant with them that you cannot possibly keep without being unfaithful to your beliefs?” There are individuals we know who are non Trinitarian, for example, but they fellowship with Trinitarians because they believe the other doctrines are “good enough.” Membership in a body whose beliefs you do not, and cannot, accept, means that whatever you do you will be unfaithful. You must either neglect the organization’s doctrines, or your own, and neither of these can possibly produce an environment that will lead to perfect sanctification.

For the 144,000, this is simply not something we can afford to do. It is not something we can afford to leave unsaid, when we are teaching others what it means to be the Bride of Christ. Let us be sure, then, that we are true to all the Covenants we have joined. If we cannot be faithful to it, Yahweh has given us a way to renounce it. If we can be faithful to it, we MUST be faithful to it completely, lest we be found lacking, and unfaithful members, not of some earthly organization, but of Yahweh’s coming Kingdom.

David.