That hymn is, depending on what
hymn we're reading about, has some verses put in, some verses
taken out. So you never know which verses
are going to be in there. Wonderful hymn. Well, turn with
me once again over to Matthew chapter 16. Matthew chapter 16. Matthew chapter 16, and we're
looking at verse 18 as kind of the backdrop to our study. Matthew 16 and verse 18. The scripture says, and I say
also unto thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will
build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against
it. We've been doing a study now
for two or three sessions about the New Testament church, and
specifically in this portion of the study, and as I've mentioned
at the very beginning, we're gonna do a pretty exhaustive
study of this topic. We're going to, right now we're
looking at the term behind the word church in our English Bibles,
of which is ekklesia, and we're seeing that this term, ekklesia,
and I got it wrote up here on the board for those that want
to see how it's written. Let me move the board up here
so that you can't see it. We see the term ekklesia, and
we've been finding out that there is a wide, broad, and deep error
that has infiltrated the Lord's churches and other so-called
churches throughout the last several hundreds of years, back
basically towards the Reformation. And that is this notion that
the church is this universal body of believers that's all
of God's people, that the church is a universal or as a invisible
body. And we're looking at the biblical
study of this term, ekklesia, and letting God's word determine
to us how we are to believe about these things. You go to any church
on the corner in this town and all over the country, and you're
gonna hear that the church is in reference to everybody who
is saved, or everybody who is the elect of God. And that is
not true. Not everybody who is an elect
of God is in the church. The church is not a universal
organization. It's not a universal body, okay? We reject the idea that the term,
as it's used in scripture for church, means a universal invisible
body. And we've learned several things
as we've kind of come along the way. And again, if you're tuning
in with us on Sermon Audio or via the internet, Facebook, we've
done previous studies that eventually will be posted on Sermon Audio.
And some of our older videos, we're going to try to get moved
out of our closed group into the open. But this first portion,
as I said, is going to be very, to some people, probably very
boring because it's going to be more informational. It's gonna
be more statistical. It's gonna be, we're looking
at quotes, we're looking at historical things, and I'm showing that
the term that God used in his word to describe the ecclesiastical
or to describe the church, the term that he used was a very
specific term that can't be convoluted. It was a very specific word that
to the people that heard that term, knew exactly what was meant
by it, to those who came after that first church for hundreds
of years, knew exactly what was meant by it and understood its
terminology and its meaning. And it's only been since around
the Reformation time that we have seen that the use of this
word has been taken and used to mean other things. And so we want to know what does
God's word teach about it? That's what exposition is all
about. We exposit the word of God and let the word of God say
what it says. We tell what the word of God
says. We don't try to isogeet the word of God. We exogeet the
word of God. Isogeetion is whenever you take and place upon God's
word a meaning or a subject or a definition or something that
you think it means and try to use God's word to back up your
idea instead of letting God's word formulate our beliefs and
ideas. And for 2,000 years now, Baptists
have said and believed that God's word defines our rule of faith.
It defines what we believe, what we hold to, and how we are to
operate, and how this operation is to look and to be. And so
we are looking at God's word at this. And so I know, again,
I know that there is a lot of people that disagree with this.
I know that there is a lot of people that are gonna have questions
about this. And I'm glad to answer those,
as I mentioned in our closed group, and now that's in the
open. Anybody that has any questions about this teaching, they're
welcome to leave comments. They're asking questions about
it. And of course, everybody here
always is welcome to pose any questions that you would like
raised as far as this is concerned, and always open for correction
and rebuke in this regards. But this is gonna be a thorough
study. Right now we're dealing with
the historical understanding of the word behind church. And
we're seeing how not only was it understood in classical Greek
whenever it was being used, even before Jesus took that word and
applied it to his church, how it was understood there, but
also how it's been understood by historians all throughout
history. And then we're gonna look kind
of a little bit at the etymology itself, which we've already done,
but I wanna show you that there were four other words that could
be used and Jesus didn't decide to use those words. And then
once we get that done, we're gonna dive into God's word and
we're gonna see Is that the proof, is God's word actually defining
this word as we see in history, as we see in that? Are those
people saying true things about what God's word says? And so
I hope you'll see once we're done that God's word is trustworthy
and all those historians and all those Greek people that have
the word and all that stuff, they were being truthful whenever
they speak about this word. So that gives us a little confidence
in some of that, because obviously man's intellect and reasoning
is not to be accepted as truth unless God's word can ratify
that which has been said by man. So it's God's word that we look
at. Now, we looked at three different,
and there's actually some, We can actually break some of this
down and further, but I wanted to stick with the three main
principles here. There's basically three rules
of thought when it comes to the word church. The first one is
the Roman Catholic view, which is that the church is a universal
visible body, meaning that the church is made up of all the
people in all the places that claim the faith of the Roman
Catholic Church. It's a universal body, meaning
that it's all over the world, and everybody that is a Roman
Catholic and is in the Roman Catholic Church makes up that
visible church. So it's a universal, visible
body, okay? The second notion or the second
category that most people in the world fall into is this second
one here, is the universal invisible, okay? This universal invisible
church, is the direct concoction of the Protestants. Whenever
the Protestants came out of the Catholic church, they came out
saying that this was not a true church, it was a harlot church,
okay? And so they were gonna come out
and they wanted to reform this church and make it a correct
church because they felt that this church did not hold the
gospel and other things, But anyway, they were gonna come
out of this church, and so whenever they came out, there was a little
issue with the fact that, well, if we say that this is not a
church, and that if church truly is a visible thing, if church
truly is a local thing, then if this is the church that we
came out of, and we're saying that it's not a church, then
whenever we get to teaching about church, then what of our baptism
and what of our ordinations? Are preachers and pastors that
have been ordained by these men, by these congregations? Are people
that have been baptized as infants and sprinkled in this right here? We'll have to say that that's
not valid because church is a visible thing. And if it's a visible
thing, then we have to identify with that visible thing. And
they didn't want to be identified with that visible thing. So the
Protestants took on an understanding that obviously church couldn't
mean this because this isn't true. And obviously our hearts
are right. We want to continue on doing
what we do. We all know that the Baptists
aren't right. Of course, they were the ones
being killed all over the place and called heretics, right? We're
not gonna listen to the Baptists and we're not gonna go to the
Baptists and say the Baptists were right, so we're in a predicament.
We can't identify with this and we can't identify with this,
so what are we gonna do? Well, that's where the universal
invisible church comes into play. They said that the church is
something that is universal, not just in one particular location,
or one particular congregation, and that it is invisible, meaning
that it is made up of everybody who is God's people, whether
they're alive, whether they're dead, whether they're yet to
be born, they all make up the church, okay? And it's a universal
thing, it's an invisible thing, okay? There is no locality to
it, there is no gathering of it, okay? And so that's what,
allowed them to keep their baptisms, allowed to keep their ordinations
and keep trucking on. And this Protestant view of the
church was not known by the church in the history past. And as you
remember, I read several quotes a few weeks ago that showed that
that was the case, that that was unknown. This understanding
of church was not known before these time periods, okay? And
so, The third category is a, the church is a local visible
church, meaning that it is a gathered congregation, okay? And so this right here is the
biblical view, and it just so happens that's the Baptist view
of church, or at least the original Baptist view of the church. There's
a lot of Baptists now that don't believe this either. I grew up
in a church that didn't teach this. Baptist church that didn't
teach this. They believed that churches were
autonomous, which would lend to the local nature of it, but
they didn't believe that the church was strictly a visible
local congregation, meaning one local congregation. They believed
that it was made up of all the people of God, makes up the body,
makes up the church, makes up the bride, all that stuff. The
biblical look is local visible. We reject these two. We reject
these. These are not biblical. Now,
we're not gonna part fellowship with anybody who comes and believes
the gospel, but yet still does not know about this, okay? We're not gonna make that a rule
of fellowship or anything like that, but We are gonna say that
this is the biblical view, and that's what we believe here.
The majority of everyone's membership here, to my understanding, believes
this. And this is what we're gonna
teach here, unless God corrects us in some way or another down
the line. But this is the biblical view
as we see that today. And so we've broken that up into
those three, and we've seen that so far, the local visible has
been the definition that we've seen and understood by everyone
so far. Now, for those that haven't been
paying attention or watching, there's a few books that we have.
There's The Trail of Blood there for those who's watching. We
also have this book here, The New Testament Church. And in
those, you'll find some detailed history and information about
what we're teaching We have those on our book table. If you want
some, text me and I'll send you a copy of it. Another book that
I'd like to recommend to you is this one here, Old Landmarkism
by J.R. Graves. If you've never read
that book, grab a hold of it. It's still in print in a lot
of places. Matter of fact, I think you can
find this online in PDF form. I was given this by a dear brother,
Brother Howard Carlson. A lot of times our church is
deemed a landmark Baptist church. We don't identify with any denomination
or organization or anything like that. I don't have any problem
being called a landmark Baptist if you have the terminology correct. Not all landmarkism is the same.
And I don't want to go into a whole history of landmarkism. You can
kind of look that up or contact me and I'll let you know. We
don't believe that there's a chain link succession of churches.
We believe that there is a chain link succession of, not from
like this church begat this church, begat this church, begat this
church, begat that church, and only have the authority to make
that church. That's not what we believe. We believe that there
is a perpetuity of the Lord's churches, that in every age since
Christ built that first church, that there has been a New Testament
church and that those churches succeed through time by baptized believers forming congregations. And so, just as this church here
was formed by two families who were baptized believers who believed
the doctrine of Christ, who came together and said, hey, let's
start meeting together and started meeting together in a home and
there a church began. The Holy Spirit brought that
together. We believe that the Holy Spirit
brings churches together, that other churches don't authorize
another church to be a church, okay? So that's where we were
different with some landmarkism, but that's not the landmarkism
of Graves or some of the other men. Anyway, pick up that book,
Old Landmarkism. That also discusses about the
New Testament church that's really good. And there's a whole lot
of others. I've got a whole bunch of stuff that I have in PDF form
that I can send you, a link to my Dropbox where you can download
those. If you're interested in that, just shoot me a text in
the comments below and I'll send that out to you. Now, if you're
listening on Sermon Audio, send me an email and I'll send it
to you as well. Okay, where we left off last
time is we read several places that told us that the word ekklesia
meant a local visible assembly. The term ekklesia itself in Greek,
ek and lesia means called out, and that's where most people
stop. They'll say, okay, we're the called out ones, and they
say, there you go, that's all of the elect of God. We're the
called out ones. But ekklesia meant more than
just called out ones. It meant more than just assembled
ones, okay? It was more than just a called
out assembly. It is a called out assembly,
but it meant more than a called out assembly. The term ecclesia
meant a governing body that was called out from among the citizens
specifically to conduct the affairs and businesses
of that city state, okay? And so just like In Joplin, we
have a city council who are citizens of Joplin, but they are called
out of the citizenry of Joplin to meet and to gather in a single
location, and during that time of location, when they gather
together, they form the city council, okay? Whenever they're
home, they're not the city council. There may be a member of the
city council at home, and you would say, hey, councilman, because
that person is a member of the city council, but that person
is not the city council. He is a member of the city council,
right? He can't make the decisions of the city council. He is just
a council member. And the same way with the Lord's
Church. The Lord's Church is a gathered body and it makes
up one institution, and that one institution is the institution
that Christ formed and built to be the place of worship, the
place of learning, the place of evangelism, the place of the
gospel being perpetuated, and where the ordinance of God and
the worship of God would be done. That's where he ordained for
that to take place, in the local, visible, gathered church, okay? Now, that doesn't mean that you
can't study your Bible at home. That doesn't mean that people
can't get together in a little front room fellowship, but friends
that's come over, But again, we're talking about the church,
not a get-together and not a home Bible study. We're talking about
the church. We're not talking about a building.
We're not talking about a denomination. Those are not churches. The church
is a group of baptized believers who had gathered together for
the worship, the instruction, and the ordinances of Christ,
okay? And so, it isn't us sit here
watching across the airwaves, although that's great, and I'm
glad people are able to do that for those who are living in places
where there ain't no churches. I would encourage you to try
to find a church if you can find a church, because God has blessed
through the local church. There is a blessing that God
gives his people in a local gathered assembly whenever he gathers.
He's promised his presence there. Whenever he said, Lo, I am with
you always, he was talking to the local church when he said
that. Whenever he said that when two or three of you gather in
my name, there I will be also, he was talking to the local church
there, remember? He was giving instruction on
discipline within the local church. Whenever he said when two or
three, and this is the verse that a lot of people use to say,
well, it don't matter if we're gathered in the local church
or if there's just a couple of us on the internet, wherever
two or three are gathered, wherever two or three are gathered, okay? Not linked, where they're gathered.
Ekklesia meant an actual body of people that came and assembled
in a gathering together and formed a body that did specific things
that Christ has commanded, okay? The local church, whenever he
said, where two or three are gathered in my name, that verse,
if you look at the context of that, is in reference to whenever
somebody needs to be disciplined within the local church and they
haven't listened to the guy that went to him and two or three
witnesses was taken to him and he still didn't repent and listen,
he was then brought before the church and the Bible says if
he doesn't listen to the church, then you're to expel that man
from out of the church. Well, how do you do that if the
church is a universal invisible body? That we become a member
of the church by quickening. If we become a member of the
church by election or by quickening, then how do we expel that person
out of the church? How do you take somebody before
the church for discipline if that church is a universal body?
Can't do it, can you? All of the admonitions, all of
the laws and the commandments that was given to the church
to carry out as far as discipline is concerned, as far as the ordinance
is concerned, as far as ministry is concerned, has absolutely
positively no way to be done if it's a universal invisible
body. Has no way to do it if it's a universal body at all.
The only way that those things can be carried out is if you're
an actual gathered assembled people together. And it's there
in the context of that discipline that Jesus said, where two or
three are gathered in my name, there I am. Meaning that whenever
the church is gathered together and makes a judgment, a biblical
judgment upon somebody who needs repentance and someone who refuses
to repent and they are to be removed from the church. He says,
I am there in the midst of you. I am there with you. I've given
you that authority to do that. Why? Because as humans, we kind
of feel bad whenever we try to tell somebody not to come back,
right? We kind of have a, it's hard for us. We'll, we'll let
things go on and on and on and on and on. and on until it finally
blows up before we even try to do any kind of discipline a lot
of times. But Jesus is saying, hey, I've given you discipline
within the local church because I've given the local church the judicial leverage. You are the ones to judge within
the people of God. And so we see that the local
visible church is what's been said now. I read a whole bunch
of quotes last week. I want to read just a few more
today, and then we're going to look at some words here. Clement
in AD 217, AD 217, okay, said this. He said, to the Church
of God which sojourns at Rome in his, now this was to his epistle
to these churches, he wrote, to the church of God which sojourns
at Rome, to the church of God sojourning at Corinth, and then
he begins his letter, okay? Now, Clement, at that time, understood
that churches were independent of each other, and it wasn't
one universal invisible church, or even one universal visible
church. If it would have been a universal visible church, he
would have said, to the church at Corinth and at Rome, or just
to the church. If it was a universal invisible
church, he would have said it was just to the church. But no,
he made a specific plea or introduction to them as individual entities,
institutions. They are churches. To the church
of God sojourning at Corinth, which was a gathered assembly,
to the church of God at Rome, a gathered assembly. Eusebius
also made reference to this The very fact of Clement saying this,
he said, there is one acknowledged epistle of this Clement, great
and admirable, which he wrote in the name of the Church of
Rome to the Church of Corinth. Sedition then having arisen in
the latter church, we are aware that this epistle has been publicly
read in very many churches, both in old times, also in our day. And so here, even Eusebius recognizes
that churches or plural, not singular. You have a singular
universal visible church. You have a singular universal
invisible church. There's not multiple universal
invisible churches. There's not multiple universal
visible churches, okay? But there is multiple congregations. And so Clement and Eusebius both
recognized that the church of Jesus Christ where local congregations,
wherever they gathered, were the church, and not this universal
invisible or universal invisible. Irenaeus, in 175 to 200 AD, he
wrote this, for the churches which have been planted in Germany
do not believe or hand down anything different, nor do those churches
in Spain, nor those in Gaul, nor those in the East, nor those
in Egypt, nor those in Libya, nor those which have been established
in the central regions of the world." So here Irenaeus also,
and again, I'm not putting stock in any of these men as far as
their theological teachings, but I'm just letting you know
the understanding of the word ekklesia to these men back that
far was not a universal invisible something. The word ekklesia
meant local congregations that were gathered. Tertullian in
AD 150 said, three are sufficient to form a church, although they
be laymen. Three are sufficient to form
a church. Again, the word form being used
there. That word form, what is a form? Whenever you form something,
you bring something together, right? If I form a letter, what
am I doing? I'm bringing some words together
to type up a letter. If I form a sidewalk, what do
I do? I put a board up in there and
I gather the cement together in a specified location for it
to be walked on, right? If I form some clay, what do
I do? I take the clay and I put it
together and I form it into a specific pattern. So whenever we see these men
are understanding ecclesia as we've seen it defined historically,
we see that they understood what the Lord meant by this. He didn't
mean other things. Now, I'm not quoting Norman Geisler,
but Geisler of old. He says, of the churches of the
first and second centuries, All congregations were independent
of one another. So he used the term congregations
for one. Second of all, he realized that
they were independent of one another. They didn't make one
large body. See, that's what this universal
visible Catholic version says, that they are universal, but
every Catholic church is the local body or is part of the
body. And so it makes up the body as
a whole. And that's what he's saying,
that's not true. Every congregation is independent of each other.
They don't make up one large body. They are independent of
each other. Each local congregation is a body in and of itself. The
invisible visible church can't be a body. Have you ever seen
a universal invisible body? It's not ever gathered. It's
not a body, is it? It's a dismemberment. If you
have a body that's all over the place, that's a dismembered body.
And it being invisible, that just makes no sense at all, period.
A body is visible. There ain't no such thing as
an invisible body. We can't even say that about
God. God is not an invisible body. The Bible says whenever
it talks about God and his invisibleness, it says God is spirit. It didn't
say he's a body. When did God have a body? whenever
Jesus took on flesh, right? That's whenever a body was prepared
for Christ. That's when God manifested in
flesh. And then he had a body, guess what? It was visible. Mosheen, the historian says this,
during a great part of this second century, all the churches, plural,
continued to be as at the first, independent of each other. Each
church was a kind of little independent republic. Again, that lends to
the term of ecclesia. That's what the ecclesia was,
ecclesia. It was a republic. It was people
that was gathered out of the citizenry who came together and
formed a congregation of people that governed over that body.
That's what the republic, isn't that what our republic is? a
public that is governed by the people. The people was gathered
by people who represented them in that. And so the church is
God's representation on this earth. The church is the place
where God is represented, Christ is represented in the church.
That's why he connects the church and Christ together all the time.
I say this is a mystery, but I'm speaking of Christ and the
church. There is this form between Christ
and this church, and that is, we are his representation upon
this earth. We are his, and it's not one
person. It's not the pastor. It's not the deacons. It's not
the treasurer or whoever else. It's not the most prominent person
in the congregation. It's the congregation. The congregation
was the representation for the people, not one particular person. Now, within the Greek ecclesia,
In that congregation, although that was a governing body and
the whole congregation had to say so, within the congregation
there, they had roles of leadership in there so that there wouldn't
be chaos. The same in the Lord's Church.
He is placed, even though the governing body is the local church
gathered, he is put in their roles where there are some pastors,
there are some teachers, there are some that have other gifts,
and he is placed the pastor, teacher, as the one who has the
oversight. Okay, who's the one who just
makes sure that there isn't any, you know, chaos that keeps things
in order, which sometimes I fail to be a good overseer because
I'm pretty chaotic myself. But Brother Owen said this, in
no approved writer for 200 years after Christ is mention made
of any organized, visibly professing church except a local congregation. Okay, so even Owen says that
for 200 years after Christ, there is not even one mention of a
congregation or visibly professing church except a local congregation. So nobody for 200 years even
dreamed of there being anything other than a local visible assembly. There is a, Let me read here
another couple here. I'm gonna write that down, there
it is. Cardinal Hosius, who was a Catholic cardinal in AD 1524,
okay, 1524, he was the president of the Council of Trent. Again, I don't put any stock
in these men as religious, theological men. I get it. Here, son, come over here and
do that. Don't mind. Make sure that that cord is tucked
behind the door so it don't fall out. Cardinal Hosius, Cardinal in
the Catholic Church, he was the president of the Council of Trent
in 1524. That was a long time ago. But that was around the
Reformation time also, remember? But he said this. Were it not
that the Baptists have been grievously tormented and cut off with the
knife during the past 1,200 years, they would swarm in greater number
than all of the reformers. Now, just a little quick math,
in case that doesn't jump out to you. 1524, what'd he say,
300 and, what'd he say, 1,200 years? Minus 1,200 years, that's AD
324. Okay, so here this Catholic priest
at the Council of Trent is making public that the fact that Baptists
have been at least around since 324. And he says that if it hadn't
been for the fact that we've persecuted these people so badly,
they would have swarmed and covered everywhere. Okay, so he recognized
that the Baptists did not come out of the Catholic Church, so
we know that we're not Protestant, okay? We're not Protestants here. The Protestants was a different
division of people than the Baptists. They were a total different group
of people, and a lot of even Baptists say that we came out
of the Protestant Reformation. We did not come out of the Protestant
Reformation. And Baptist is not a denomination.
Baptist is what we were called. We still identify with that.
We all have no problem identifying with that, not as a denomination,
not as an organization, not as a convention, but we identify
that with the ministry of Christ. We are Baptists in ministry,
in service, okay? That's what that word means.
And so here, this cardinal says that the Baptists were, clear
back to 324, Sir Isaac Newton, said the Baptists are the only
body of known Christians that have never symbolized with Rome. Now, if that's the case, if that's
true, and I believe it to be true, not just because he said
it, but because of other things, and particularly the Bible, but
if that be true, if the Baptists are the only ones that have never
identified with Rome, then that means all other churches that
have ever come out of Rome not churches. Their leader, their
head, their organization came from something besides Christ. The New Testament Church has
Christ as its head, not John Calvin or Martin Luther or Charles
Wesley or Constantine, okay. So Isaac Newton realized that
the Baptists are the only body of Christians that have never
symbolized with Rome. So then that means that all the
early churches before Rome, all the early churches when Rome
first became on the scene, they were Baptists. They recognized
them as Baptists. Mosheim also says this, before
the rise of Luther and Calvin, there lay secreted in almost
all the countries of Europe persons who adhered tenaciously to the
principles of modern Dutch Baptists. Of course, the modern Dutch Baptists
at that time were very much in line with a lot of what we believe.
And the Edenburg Encyclopedia, which is a Presbyterian encyclopedia,
by the way, Protestant encyclopedia, actually said this. It said,
it must have already occurred to our readers that the Baptists
are the same sect of Christians that were formerly described
as Anabaptists. Indeed, this seems to have been
their leading principle from the time of Tertullian to the
present time." Okay, so the Edinburgh Encyclopedia and by that the
Presbyterians recognized that the Baptist also described as
Anabaptist. If you remember the last time
we were together, we went through the 1644 London Confession on
intersection on the church and shown where as opposed to the
1689, the Philadelphia, the New Hampshire Confession of Faith,
the Southern Baptist Confession of Faith, all these later confessions
of faith all have moved away, especially because of the 1689,
they have moved away. That's why a lot of people think
we came out of the 1689, or out of the Reformation, is because
the Baptists that compromised in 1689 with the Protestants
and start saying, yeah, we believe like you do. And so they started,
basically, they copied the Westminster Confession of Faith and only
changed it on a couple of things as it pertained to baptism and
the Lord's Supper and a couple of different things. But anyway,
the Baptists that preceded them, who were not under persecution
at the time that 1644 was written, told what they believed. And
they said that the church, ecclesia, was not a universal body, that
it was a local gathered congregation. And they said that we are unjustly
called Anabaptists. But we learned that that phrase,
we are unjustly called Anabaptists, wasn't saying, don't group me
in with those guys, but they were trying to distance themselves
from the Anabaptists. The 1644 Baptists who were very
strongly doctrines of grace, very strongly local church, very
strongly close communion. Those Baptists said were wrongly
called Anabaptists. The word Anabaptist means rebaptizer. We're not rebaptizers, we're
baptizers. We baptize. We're not rebaptizers. All those people who are coming
out of these Protestant churches and coming and seeing the truth
and wanting to join our membership and join our churches, we're
not requiring them to be rebaptized, we're requiring them to be baptized
because they've never been baptized in the first place. Sprinkling
is not baptism. Pouring is not baptism. Infant
baptism is not baptism. That's not scriptural baptism.
So anybody that's had any of that has not been baptized. So we're not rebaptizing you,
we are baptizing you. And so here, the Presbyterian
Encyclopedia says that these groups of people have held to
this principle from the time of Tertullian to the present.
Anybody know how long or when Tertullian was alive? Tertullian,
huh? You were born a long time ago. You didn't know Tertullian though,
did you? No, okay. New York running buddies. He's on the other side of the
pond, huh? Tertullian was born 50 years after the death of the
Apostle John. So, it sounds like to me that
the understanding of what the ecclesia and what the local church,
who they were, was pretty evident through all of history, that
it was a local visible assembly, and that local visible assembly
was identified as a Baptist congregation. They were recognized as Baptists.
The Baptist principles that were being held. Now, as we go through
the study of the church, I know everybody wants it all to be
done right now, but it's gonna be broke up. We're gonna talk
about membership, we're gonna talk about the ordinances, we're
gonna talk about The term Baptist, we're gonna talk about all this
stuff about what I just said about the Baptists are the only New
Testament church, what I mean by that, what a New Testament
church is, the identifying marks of a New Testament church. We're
gonna look at leadership in a New Testament church. We're gonna
look at the officers of pastor, teacher. We're gonna look at
the deacons. Everything that is the makeup of the local church,
the congregational rule, we're gonna look at all that stuff
and we're gonna dig in, we're gonna talk, we're gonna look
at baptism. Whenever we look at baptism,
we're gonna look and see about John the Baptist. We don't believe
and teach here that John the Baptist was an Old Testament
prophet and that his baptism was of the Old Testament. We
don't teach that John was a New Testament prophet and that his
baptism was something different, but not what we do now. Okay,
we believe that the baptism of John the Baptist was New Testament
baptism, that it still is the baptism that's being carried
out today. We're still doing the service work of John, that
John began, and that Jesus, whenever he was baptized, sought out John
because it was different than the Old Testament. I don't know
how many times we've had this conversation, especially with
Presbyterians, that they think that John's baptism was some
sort of Old Testament baptism, that he was the last of the Old
Testament prophets, and that his baptism was just a ceremonial
cleansing, and that it wasn't the New Testament baptism that
we have today, and that's not true, and the scripture is very
clear on that. Matter of fact, extremely clear
that I believe that once we read a couple of verses in the scriptures
that it should ever subtle any mouth that thinks that John the
Baptist was some either Old Testament something or some intermediate
something between the Old Testament and the New Testament. Very New Testament, very gospel,
very New Testament church. So we'll look at that. All right,
how about we have a break and get something to drink, use the
restroom if we need to. Come back in because I want to
look again some more at this word ekklesia and show you that
Jesus did have the option whenever he termed Matthew 16, 18 in person
to have used other words to mean just an assembly. If it is a
universal and visible assembly, we're assembled together by our
election or by our being born again, he could have used a different
word, but he didn't. If it's a universal visible of
just an assembly of the same types of people all over the
place, he could have used a word that meant that, but he didn't.
He used ecclesia, which strictly means this. And we'll look at
that when I come back. So let's take a break in about
five, 10 minutes here and get drinking.