I’ve always been perplexed by the issue of church unity. We all accept the need for unity and God’s desire for it. Yet at the same time, there is so much interpersonal conflict within the church and between churches that seems unable to find any resolution. (I’m talking now about people who genuinely love the Lord and others, love His truth, want the Spirit, want unity, and do not harbor known sin.)One reason for lack of resolution which we have not mentioned til now is that unseen spirits sit on our ears and affect our perceptions of one another and our ability to hear one another in the Spirit of Christ. We are all unaware of these spirits, at least regarding ourselves. (My heart can genuinely see the spirits operating on you, but not on myself. Your heart can genuinely see the spirits operating on me, but not on yourself [—and then, neither of us believes that the other really can see the spirits operating on ourselves!])
As long as we can’t see what is operating on us, we can’t talk through our differences. We talk past one another—about relational issues; about ministry vision, purposes, and authority; and about teaching. As long as we can’t talk through these things, our issues are irresolvable. The irresolution leads to perceived relational injustices of word and action producing woundedness. Without resolution and healing, genuine manifest unity is not possible.
Is there a solution to this? Many have sought for solutions. But so far, the solutions seem grounded in offering denial-based approaches to relationship. They are based in goading us to put on the appearance of unity whether or not our inner issues are actually resolved. The word used to cover this approach is “forgiveness.” But how can we truly forgive in more than mere word if we don’t believe the relational injustices toward us have been resolved?
We live in a justice based universe. The human heart cries out for justice. So does the heart of the newborn believer! The entire Bible is based in the concept of justice. So whatever we understand about forgiveness, our approach to it must be grounded in this reality. There can be no forgiveness (hence unity) apart from government and the belief in spiritual justice.
The Lord built a government of justice into the body of Israel. This also applies to New Israel. The original body was imparted a system of judges and elders for resolving differences.
Similarly, the Lord has always intended and will bring forth a ministry of elders and judges for the body of Christ who will serve to mediate relational issues, and who will prevent and cure relational injustice. The seeds for this were laid in the various injunctions the Lord laid out to us for handling relational conflict.
As we have seen already, to this day we have failed to bring forth the manifestation of God’s kingdom in our midst over two thousand years. We have forever remained content to be a social people dependent on the government of others. Yet we cannot believe that this 2,000-year sojourn has been in vain. We must believe that, in spite of the evidence, God has been at work to develop and manifest the court system of judges and elders that belong to New Israel.
This new body-wide governmental eldership will be fashioned after the image of the 24 elders of Revelation. The 24 elders are those who have overcome their interpersonal issues with one another. They mirror the apostles who, having had to come to the Lord for resolution of their differences in their early discipleship, have been able to come into unity with one another to bring resolution to others. (The elders around God’s throne did not just “get there.” They had to work their way through interpersonal conflict over their 24 separate unique visions of God to get there.)
But at present for this entire age, there has been no satisfying appeal for the believer for true relational justice in the body of Christ for the demonstrating of kingdom government throughout the earth. There is no satisfying governmental forum or venue in place to which believers may go to have their disputes resolved. This is going to change. But before it changes, we need to know how and why it will change.
In His brief tenure here, the Lord left us with no further court than to air grievances before two or three witnesses and then to the local church. Yet with even such a small simple venue, we see that relational justice has not been established. We are still under the spirits that keep us divided. (Attempts to establish believers courts based on Matthew 18 have met with little consistent success in this age. Anyone can choose whichever 2-3 believers he wants to hear the case and which church! So no court is ever established, and no resolution.)
But why has the Lord left us to this lawless state? Let me suggest that the Lord has left us this way because there is ultimately a charge on us to come directly to Him through the Spirit in prayer for aid and appeal over our conflicts. (He said as much through the parable of the widow woman and His teaching about resolving differences before making an offering.)
There is a way for us to come to Him and find personal resolve—including inner healing—concerning our situations in the body of Christ, despite the utter faultiness of venue to find relational justice here and now. As we do this—as we do come to Him—to seek relief and healing—we will see a new governmental realm come into manifestation that will mediate true unity among us and that will enable His actual physical return to our midst.
What is it we must personally do and for which God is waiting for enough of us to do that will bring us to this new stature? How are we to handle the injustices against us?
Because we are unable to talk through so much of our spiritual and relational differences and woundedness, the Lord seeks for us to come to Him by way of intercession concerning them. We are to come to Him as our judge, and as the judge of our perceived offending brothers.
In coming to Him, we are to release to Him the entirety of our perceptions regarding what has happened to us. We are to cry to Him for justice—for justice from His point of view, and do so in a spirit whereby we are open to be judged as well for whatever unseen spirits we are under as perceived by the offender whom we have failed to be able to talk to.
The Lord wills us to come, and to come, and to come, and to keep coming to Him over this, until we arise in our spirit to a place whereby we transcend our own perception of what has happened us.
This transcension becomes certified in our hearts when we reach a point where our concern for what happened to us is superceded by our concern of what is to happen to our brother if he is not rescued from the spirit he is truly under. And our earnest and true hope is for our reconciliation to this brother over the offense.
(We must realize that some inter-ministerial offenses can be of incredible magnitude with great repercussions throughout the body of Christ in a city or region. Only God can work among us to bring His justice to bear in these situations. But this is how it must be done.)
As this comes up before us, and our entrustment to Him of it becomes certified, we ascend into a holy objectivity of governmental authority. As we learn to transcend personal relational injustice, God will bring us into a place of eldership that will qualify us to solve the interrelational and inter-ministerial issues that now keep us all apart—which is what true church government is about.
Just as He did in ancient Israel, the Lord is going to establish a heavenly court of justice in the earth among His New Covenant people. He will do this by bringing matured people of faith into an elder status that mirrors the unity of the elders around His throne. These earth-side elders will become the point of mediation through the Spirit for bringing the Lord’s ministries into alignment with each other in every place, bringing justice in Christ’s stead to the issues that keep us apart.
This eldership anointing will come forth at every level. It will come forth on the small interpersonal level of small home groups. And it will come forth on the mega level of inter-city church ministry.
The Lord has really designed for the body to be able to regulate itself, just as it does in natural life. And for this He will raise up this governmental eldership. God will sovereignly marginalize those who refuse to submit to the justice brought by the elders. As He spoke regarding those of old Israel, “he shall be cut off from his people.” And where we fail to listen to our appointed elders, He will refuse to listen to us.
The Lord will not release us from the tyranny of the human governments of the earth until we are capable of demonstrating a superior justice in the earth.
In the meantime, we must pursue the Lord unmitigatedly concerning releasing to Him the causes of our hearts regarding others at every level of relationship and ministry. The Lord is our ultimate judge. We must do this until we transcend the pain associated with all injustice we have perceived—transcended it to the point that we are more concerned about what happens to our brothers in the ministry who have sinned against us and against the body than we are for our own healing and the restitution due to us.
We must release others to the Lord for His perfect solution to their lives and to ours. This release is the true essence of pure forgiveness. It is not a denial that justice is due, that there are consequences to our words and actions (even if committed under the influence of spirits on us we do not discern), or that heartfelt reconciliation through confrontation of issues is unnecessary.
I need prayer as much as the next person in these regards.
Chris Anderson
Riverside, Rhode Island
First Love Ministry
- a ministry of Anglemar Fellowship
http://www.firstloveministry.org09/05
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