During the late 20th century the ordination of women aroused contention in some Church circles, and in doing so exposed a common confusion concerning the nature of Church leadership and its authority.

lack of understanding in turn exposed of a far deeper and more profound confusion –

a lack of understanding concerning the nature of the Christian Church itself!

in this regard: at the one end of the spectrum,
  • episcopal churches (such as the Orthodox and Roman Catholic) believe that the essence of the Church lies is in its bishops, to whom the Holy Spirit was given through so-called 'apostolic succession'.

at the other extreme,
  • some Protestant groups use the idea of the 'priesthood of all believers' to reduce the Christian Church in effect to not much more than a voluntary democratic association of Christians who worship together, defined by mission statements and doctrinal definitions, and which hires a pastoral chaplain for its needs.

these two extremes, some have tried to adopt a moderate position, seeing the Church as a communion of communions under bishops by teaching 'apostolic succession' without papal primacy (such as the Anglican communion).

to this must begin with Jesus Himself, but we must not assume that His Church was simply a collection of His disciples, for both John the Baptist and the Pharisees also had their groups of disciples and these could in no way be considered a churches in any form.

was the Lord's Church an association centred on a structure of ministry such as twelve apostles, for the apostles themselves were simply the senior group of those in full-time training by Christ to become 'fishers of men' in the continuance of His ministry.

Even the New Testament term used for 'church' is a secular Hellenistic Greek term 'ecclesia' (ἐκκλησία) for a citizen town-meeting, which does not in any way express the identifying characteristics of Christ's church as defined in our New Testament. Our New Testament gives this word, as Jesus used the concept, a meaning that became unique to His followers, to His community, alone.

Our modern English word 'church' is derived from the late Greek word 'kyriakon', arising from the Greek neuter of 'kyriakos' ('kyrios' meaning lord/master) and so meaning "of the lord" or belonging to the Lord, so this should always be central to our understanding of Christ's church. This Greek term (κυριακός/kyriakos) actually only occurs twice in the whole Bible –

So, let's take a closer look at the circumstance within which Jesus developed His group of followers as His church.

Jesus' preaching essentially continued the special message of John the Baptist, as also Christ's disciples did in their ministry prior to His crucifixion (Mat.3:2; 4:17; 10:7). This was the announcement of the nearness, the 'eggus' (ἐγγύς) or imminence, of the Kingdom of God: an imminence of its presence which was later made visible on Christ's mount of transfiguration (Mat.16:28-17:3).

This hidden nearness or immediacy of the future kingdom of God in Christ's bodily presence (as was revealed to the three on that Mount) has often been assumed to be because of who Jesus was: His deity, or the personification of the kingdom in the king. But this is not what Jesus taught!

Jesus taught instead that, for those that had an ear to hear, that the nearness or hidden presence of the kingdom of God began only at His baptism by John the Baptist in the river Jordan.

Christ's baptism marked this turning point: not the Jordan water, but the unique anointing of the Holy Spirit Himself in His upon Jesus as the sinless Christ of God. It is for this reason that the Spirit appeared physically as a 'dove' to Jesus and John, echoing the historical new beginning represented by the dove to Noah after the 'baptism' of the great Flood.

In His eternal deity, Jesus the preincarnate Son of God, needed no anointing of the Spirit! But, in the reality of His incarnation His humanity needed the gift of the Holy Spirit to fulfil His mission. This unique and never-before-existing relationship of the Holy Spirit to the humanity of Jesus, from after His baptism by John, is the critical essence of the kingdom-presence, the present rule or authority of God in Christ in this world.

It is Christ's human relationship to the Holy Spirit which constituted the presence of the kingdom of God during His ministry. For this reason Jesus explained –

This same relationship of Christ to the Spirit continues now in all Christ's disciples as a result of His gift of the Spirit at Pentecost to His people. This relationship of the Spirit to God's people constitutes the continuing hidden presence of Christ's kingdom in our world today, which will be made physically visible in His second coming at the resurrection.

This is more than the leadership of Jesus over the disciples being replaced by the leadership of the Holy Spirit. That would be compensatory but not an advantage.

This three-fold description is the vital essence of the ministry of Christ's Church in the world because it has received the Spirit. This relationship of the Holy Spirit is the actual continuity of the Christian church.

Historically. Christendom has argued for its continuity through relationship structure in the leadership of the organised church, that is so-called 'apostolic succession'. In countering this the Reformed movement in Christianity has taught that Church continuity lies in true doctrine, a doctrine of Biblical essentials to the Faith. But definitions of Church dogma is no less subject to human manipulation and influence than is the organisation of 'apostolic-succession through a historical line of bishops.

If the Church is what began in Christ, its continuity can be nothing less than the essence of what began in Jesus. That is – His human relationship to the Holy Spirit which began at the beginning of His ministry and is continued today in His people across the world.

This kingdom is God's rule on earth. Thus, doing the will of God, God's way, is the essence of His kingdom. This is echoed in the Lord's Prayer – "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth AS it is in Heaven".

this reason Jesus publicly said –

The Holy Spirit is given specifically to enable the doing of God's desire. This was the united understanding of the leaders of the Church when they still lived in the white-heat of the Pentecost event –

For this reason the present action of the Holy Spirit is described as the – "powers of the age to come" (Heb.6:5), that is – of the future kingdom come.

The moral character of this kingdom is the moral character of God.

The Holy Spirit is our Enabler so that Christ's teaching on the will of God may be completely fulfilled in His church, to be the presence of the kingdom in this present generation – just as Jesus Himself was.

Jesus also taught concerning loving God and loving our neighbour that –

"On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets." (Mat.22:40)

that is – the fulfillment of every command of the Old Testament; everything that God has ever said.

This is more than an internalising of God's rule or kingdom for ethical purposes. The kingdom is the representation of God in this world. It is the 'image of God', the image in which our first ancestor was made and which he functionally* lost; the image fulfilled in Christ's ministry and which must continue in His spiritual Body today.

God's authority is inherent in the presence of His kingdom, not in any organizational support-scaffolding around His people, and still less in the customs and traditions of their religious activities. It is the authority of Jesus by which He addressed the wind and the waves impeding His journey across the Sea of Galilee. It is the authority by which Saul of Tarsus addressed Elymas before the Roman governor of Cyprus and struck him with blindness.

Against this background, it is essential that the personal relationships among God's people reflect the same intense loyalty that Jesus expressed in the quote above concerning His unity with His disciples, to the unavoidable hurt of His human family waiting outside. For this reason Heaven's authority is pledged for the restoration of personal relationships –

Christ's people, God's redeemed, are the singular most precious object of God's affection. As individuals their encrustation of carnality and their reciprocation of the world's behaviour may often hide and even deny the reality of a cleansed and renewed spirit within, yet the work of God remains. His love does not change.

God knew each one of them in His heart before the world was born. He apportioned to each an opportunity to enlarge trust toward Him and so to share in His good purpose for the whole of all creation.

With feel-good sentiment, some leaders in some Christian denominations, particularly Anglican/Episcopalian, have helped confuse the distinction between the Church and what the Bible calls 'the world'. For instance, it has been said that just as Jesus taught that the 'wheat' and 'tares' are mixed and only to be separated by God at the end, so the Church is a mixture which only God may separate.

This is not true! Jesus described the 'field' in which the 'wheat' and the 'tares' are mixed as 'the world' and not the Church. The kingdom of God draws a mixed multitude (the 'net' Matt.13:47-50), but is itself composed only of those who truly believe.

Further, Paul's analogy of the Christian Church as the 'Body' of Christ is applied by some to the whole of humanity, completely ignoring the distinction which the Bible makes between the Church and the world.

Scriptures that contradict these perversions are simply relativised as culturally bound and therefore not to be applied directly in the same sense today.

In much the same way, where Holy Scripture declares homosexual practice to be an abomination, equivalent to bestiality, in bringing the judgment of God, these same ecclesiastics relativise the command of God as no longer applicable and instead point to the love between David and Jonathan as possibly showing God's acceptance of homosexual practice.

Of late, the rise of a form of Christianity which brands itself as Messianic Judaism/Christianity as though the Jewish roots of Christianity carry a special status of authentic character, denies the word of God which plainly declares that in Christ – "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are ALL ONE in Christ Jesus."

love God, these positions which pervert the character of the Christian Church/Community are therefore intolerable –