Fancied Apostles

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The religious spirit has always been active even among those who have left the traditional system. Some even fancy themselves as “apostles.” They think that their own limited, flawed understanding and teaching is the standard whereby others are measured. They imagine that they are somehow the ordained yardstick by which all others are judged, and that it is to their job to be the doctrinal police. They even attempt to justify their arrogance and pride by citing certain passages of Scripture. Thus under the guise of such religiously abused words as “rebuke,” they surreptitiously bring others into bondage while speaking of freedom.

In II Corinthians 1:24 Paul wrote,

Not for that we have dominion over your faith, but are helpers of your joy: for by faith you stand.

The Concordant Version reads,

Not that we are lording it over your faith.

If anyone had the authority to lord over another’s faith, surely it would have been Paul, the apostle; but not even he assumed such audacious supremacy.

Those of us who walk by faith have the freedom from being dominated, manipulated, pressured and coerced into someone else’s own personal belief system – “for by faith we stand.”

Clyde L. Pilkington, Jr.
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The Freedom from Being Judgmental

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We are all different from each other, and this can rub each other the wrong way. But since I know that I am as God means me to be, warts and all, so I know my brother is as God means him to be, and we love and accept each other as we are, for we are Christ to each other.

We are all being “conformed to the image of His Son.” My part is to have it fixed in my faith that God is doing that in my brother, as I see Christ perfect in him. That saves me from being judgmental of him.

Norman P. Grubb (1895-1993)
Yes, I Am
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The Only True Freedom

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Most people’s understanding of God and His plan have been tainted, due largely to the influence of religion’s faulty teaching that we are under law – contrary to Paul’s admonition that we are not under law, but under grace (Romans 6:14; cf. Galatians 2:21). Religion enslaves through the law, while grace liberates by justification (Galatians 5:1).

It must be understood that JUSTIFICATION is our standing before God today (Romans 5:9; cf. 8:30) – not law, not “forgiveness.” Justification is a done deal; we don’t need to keep asking God for “forgiveness,” but just thank Him for being made righteous. This is the only true freedom in which we can live.

André Sneidar
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Movements and Institutions

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Institutions never conserve without betraying the movements from which they proceed. The institution is static, whereas its parent movement has been dynamic; it confines men within its limits, while the movement had liberated them from the bondage of institutions; it looks to the past, although the movement had pointed forward.

H. Richard Niebuhr (1894-1962)
The Kingdom of God in America (1959)
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A Cause of Limitation

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Spiritual measure is not a matter of anything here on Earth, even for the Lord – its success, its support, its maintenance – but just how much it is answering to the full thought of God in a spiritual way. That is what counts, and that is Heavenly ground. We know so well that if people are more concerned with the maintenance of something for the Lord on this Earth – keeping it going, building it up, making it successful – they are in a realm of spiritual limitation, and not until they are completely lifted out of such considerations with the one question – How far is this answering to the Lord’s fully revealed mind? – and are governed by that alone, can there be real progress and spiritual enlightenment. Is it not true? And it is impressive that people who are really tied up with some thing – some organization, some piece of work, some society, some mission, some institution – even though it be for God in all sincerity – if that is their horizon, if that constitutes their world, they are limited spiritually. They go just so far spiritually and no farther. They are bound by their earthly fences, the fences of that particular thing.

Get away from things, out to the vast range of God’s eternal, timeless purpose, and you find all fences are down and spiritual enlargement takes place. It is the only way.

T. Austin-Sparks (1888-1971)
A Witness and a Testimony, November 1949
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Christo-Centric Fellowship

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We have to be Christo-centric. Not ego-centric, but Christo-centric. Not doctrine-centric, but Christo-centric. God is working with His people teaching them to receive one another according to each one’s relationship and faith in Him.

There are many viewpoints or doctrines within the fellowship of the Body of Christ over which we can divide if we want to find them. However, if we are concerned about being Christo-centric then we can minister Christ to each other.

Our fellowship today at large is not Christo-centric. It is doctrine-centered. Each group draws up its doctrinal statement and says, “If you want to believe this, then you can have fellowship with us.”

Each of us must have the freedom to think and to be convinced in our own hearts and not to be afraid because someone says we dare not. Paul, writing in Romans says,

Hast thou faith? Have it to thyself before God. … Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind (Romans 14:22, 5).

The message of Romans 14 must be central in our hearts if we will have true unity.

Bert Bauman
Beware of Other Christians? pages 2-3, 10
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Emancipation and Freedom

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The organization is not the ecclesia.[1] The denomination is not the ecclesia. If we see the ecclesia we will not be able to stay in the “church” long – it simply becomes an untenable position. An untenable position is one that you can not live with.

Someone who has seen the ecclesia and is paying the price to remain on that ground has found in his own personal life an emancipation and a freedom that he did not dream existed. The limitation, the smallness of Christianity and its conception of God’s purpose simply break forth into something limitless and expansive.

Floyd Police
The Great Mystery, pp. 3-4
(adapted)
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[1] [Editor:] Ecclesia is the Greek word often translated as “church” in most English versions. The word is a compound word meaning “called-out” (ek = “out”; kaleō = “called”). The ecclesia is God’s “called-out” ones. The ecclesia is not a building or denomination; not a meeting, or doctrinal creed; it is not somewhere we go, or something we do, it is who we as believers are. (Clyde L. Pilkington, Jr.)

No Covenants for Today’s Believer

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Believing Gentiles during the period covered by the book of Acts were blessed with faithful Abraham, but by nature and in the flesh the Gentiles were “strangers from the covenant of promise,” and in the teaching of the Prison Epistles, no covenant of any description is known. …

How thankful should we not be, to think that so far as the Body is concerned there are no contractual agreements, no covenants, no testaments, that involve the believer, he finds all in his completeness in Christ.

Charles H. Welch (1880-1967)
An Alphabetical Analysis, Volume 1, pages 172-178
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Exercising Our Sacred Duty

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For my part, I shall always claim the right of thinking and judging for myself, and of fully and freely expressing my views, whether these correspond with those of others or differ from them. This I conceive to be a high and holy privilege, and its exercise a sacred duty.

Robert Richardson
Cited by John M. Bland in
Men Who Would Be Kings (1995)
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Freedom from Sins

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In Whom we have redemption through His blood, the freedom from [aphesis] sins, according to the riches of His grace? (Ephesians 1:7, BSV).

In Whom we have redemption through His blood, even the freedom from [aphesis] sins (Colossians 1:14, BSV).

The Greek word (aphesis) often translated “forgiveness” is a compound word, “from-letting” (Concordant Keyword Concordance), meaning “freedom” (Strong’s G859).

Ultimate freedom from sin is far more than the traditional “forgiveness” or “pardon” of sins. “Forgiveness” and “pardon” are rooted in guilt. The followers of religion seek to obtain forgiveness through some means – concerted effort, confessions, prayers, penance, resolutions, etc.

What Paul taught went well beyond “forgiveness.” The revelation given to him involved “justification,” which, instead of being rooted in guilt, is rooted in righteousness.

Clyde L. Pilkington, Jr.
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For a further look at the subject of Forgiveness vs. Justification, see the following resources:

Article: The Ultimate Freedom from Sin: Justification! (by – Clyde L. Pilkington, Jr.)

Video: Are You Forgiven or Justified? (by Clyde L. Pilkington Jr.)