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The Body of Christ and the House of God: Key Distinctions (C.Buchanan) · (Un) Common thoughts of Christ

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: The following audio excerpt was given by a brother in the Lord many years ago.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: His message was drawing distinct comparison between the house of God and the body of Christ.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Here's Clem Buchanan bringing out these timeless truths.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: We've got something that's happening as to the church being the body of Christ, and as to the church being the house of God, and states this in 1 Timothy chapter 3, verse 15.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: But if I tarry long that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth, and without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: Now, this statement, the house of God, which is the church of the living God, these two aspects are distinct.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: One is the church, which is his body, its relationship to Christ.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: One is the church as the house of God, its relationship to God.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'll say to you, young people, that I believe you are the most privileged people who ever lived on the face of the earth, including the time when I was a young person.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: For many reasons, particularly because of the nearness of the Lord's coming for us.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe the test gets more difficult to walk in this world upholding these two relationships.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: With relationship, there is always privilege and responsibility.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: Privilege and responsibility result from relationship.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: Now think about it, brethren, all of us.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: If we are members of his body, the privilege is relationship to Christ the Son.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: But there comes the responsibility too.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: But then there is privilege and responsibility in the house of God too.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: Because think of it, you and I have privilege and we have great responsibility in the house of God.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: I feel that we have failed much, and it's become evident in the last two years, more or less, an understanding that judgment is not in the body of Christ.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: We'll go to 1 Peter chapter 4 to establish that.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: We'll read 16 and 17.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: First, yet, if any man suffer as a Christian, speaking to Christians, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God on this behalf.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: For the time has come that judgment must begin at the house of God.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: And if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: Simply put, you and I, as believers, who are in the house of God, come under the administration that is in that house.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: And the discipline is not in the body of Christ, it's in the house of God.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: We ought to keep those things separate.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: We have heard that members of the body in a nearby gathering or place have a right to say in matters of discipline.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't work out that way.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: He doesn't judge in his own body.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: God, by the Spirit, judges in his house.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: And behavior and conduct are very important.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, the time has come when judgment must begin at the house of God.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: We catch it now.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: We who have quite a bit of truth get a little more discipline because we are more responsible.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: And because we have more privilege, we have more of the sweetness of the intimate communion that goes with obedience to the word of God.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: So we need to know the mind of Christ as deserved by the Spirit of God and obey it and go on in the enjoyment of that.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: Enjoying our privilege as being in the body of Christ and our responsibility as being in the house of God.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: Now, authority, I feel, has been mixed up in the last few years amongst many who have quite a good deal of light.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to speak a few words on authority.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: Let us keep straight and not mix up the fact that discipline is not in the body of Christ.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: Who was it king of the temple?
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: The Lord.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: The Lord.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: When he was come into the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came up to him as he was teaching and said, By what authority dost thou these things?
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: And who gave thee this authority?
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: So just bring this in to show that all authority belongs to the Lord.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: He is the Lord.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: He was the Lord of that temple, and he was unrecognized.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: Now, do we recognize the Lord in the house today?
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: Do we recognize that power, authority, comes down?
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't come up.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's not a democratic thing in the assembly of God.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't come from the members of the body of Christ.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: Authority comes from the Lord.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: Now he delegates it.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then our problems, we've all been through and known something, I believe, of the not recognizing that authority or the seeking to take it away and put it where it does not belong.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: I won't go into Matthew 18 because you know it.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: And you know that the authority was put there, and it falls clear down to the end of the time.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: The Lord said, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: He turned over the responsible side to the builder you and I are building.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: And how are we building?
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: Are we building with the truth that comes down from the apostles and elders who gave us the book?
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's the only building that you and I can do that will last the test.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: It has to be according to this book.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: And that authority is put in the smallest number for a collective testimony to keep order in the house where the Lord is dwelling in the midst of the two or three gathered to his name.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: And that we find is the ultimate delegated authority.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: You can't go past that.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I want to refer now to something that happened in the early church.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't read in 1 Timothy 3, but the last two verses.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: Earlier in that chapter, we have bishops taken up and the office.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: And that is an overseer or an elder.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: Now, the way the authority comes out in the assembly is from the Lord.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: We referred to the fact that in 1 Corinthians, all the way from the first chapter to chapter 10, 15, I think it is, the view put before us is the building, it's the house of God aspect.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: And there's judgment in there.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: There's clearing out of those things that are not suitable to the one who dwelt in that house.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: And we have that responsibility to go on and submit to the Lord, who is the supreme authority, all the way through those first ten chapters.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's the Lord, it's the Lord, it's the Lord God, showing his supremacy and that he is Lord to keep that place suitable for the table that he sets up.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what happened in the early days of the church, soon after the days of the apostles, or even while you were yet living, that bishops who had served and done well began to aggregate to themselves additional authority and ruling over a wider range.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then they felt the need, a human arrangement set up to have archbishops.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think that is found in the Bible.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: That loses the sovereignty of the Lord in the midst, exercising those who are gathered to his name to take the oversight to administer in the house of God locally and every other person to the church.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: I say we want to keep our authority straight and leave it where it is.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: Don't ever try to interfere between a man and his wife.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: That man has authority over his wife, and they have a beautiful relationship.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: Leave them alone.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: Don't ever try to interfere between parents and their children.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: They have that beautiful responsibility and privilege of that relationship.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: And you, as a neighbor or a brother, have no business to assume authority in that place at all.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: Nor does the assembly either.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: The assembly is not to rule in the home.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: She's not to rule between the husband and the wife at all.
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  SPEAKER_01: Nor in the national thing.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm saying all this to emphasize about authority.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: Let's leave authority where God has put it and submit to it.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: I feel we have a generation that's come up and slipped in areas, and we who have been teaching, perhaps we're just based we ought to be in presenting the truth of what it is to be gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: And God is letting us be tested.