Unauthorized Intermediary Authority

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… The head of every man is Christ … (I Corinthians 11:3).

When someone else comes in between a man and his true Head (Christ the Lord) as some intermediary authority, that entity assumes portions of the roles belonging to each. Such an authority relieves a man of the responsibility God gave to the individual. In turn, such authority then denies God His direct authority over the man.

Ross Purdy
I Will Have One Doctrine and One Discipline: The Influence of Religion and Politics on the King James Bible
Bible Student’s Press™, 2008
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The Relation of the Ecclesia to the World

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Let us recognize and settle it once and for all that the ecclesia, the Body of Christ is not here in this world to have anything to do with the systems of this world, as such; and insofar as we become involved in the matters of the kingdoms of this world, we lose our magnetic vocation, and we shall involve ourselves in chaos from which it will take a very great deal to disentangle us.

That has been the historic tragedy of Christendom: it has in various ways become linked up with the kingdoms and interests of this world, and that is the secret of its spiritual ineffectiveness. Christ’s Body is a heavenly thing since Christ, its Head, has ascended, and all that comes down into and through His Body is heavenly in source and nature. This is utterly different from the things of earth.

Everyone who has an understanding of the Body of Christ will find himself being detached from tradition, from organized religion, and being brought to the place where there is no alternative but to come out from a thing which is a system and an order – though claiming to be in the name of the Lord and according to the Word of the Lord – but which is a thing of this earth.

It is a tremendous thing to say, but we do not hesitate to say it – that spiritual emancipation from the present system of organized religion and of what is called “the Church” with its methods, institutions, officials, governments, etc., is the necessary way to the maximum of spiritual effectiveness and fruitfulness. The tragedy of so many is the earth-boundedness of vision and the tyranny of the system.

Austin-Sparks (1888-1971)
A Witness and a Testimony (December 1927)
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Institutions Commonly Called “Church”

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This fact, that the “churches” we see today and the ecclesias of the New Testament are not in any way the same thing, is a truth that very few want to consider for fear that it may shout at them still louder. I seriously doubt if any actual objective study of the Greek word ekklesia has ever been made by them. If it were, it would be found that the institutions commonly called “churches” cannot be identified with and have no connection with the ecclesia of the New Testament. Many who recognize this try to resolve the difficulty by appealing for a distinction between “the visible church” and “an invisible church,” but all who do this must remember that these ideas are foreign to the New Testament.

Otis Q. Sellers (1901-1992)
Christian Individualism: A Way of Life for the Active Believer in Jesus Christ
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Two Kinds of Magnification

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Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death (Philippians 1:20).

There are two kinds of magnification:

(1) That of the Microscope – that makes the little seem big.

With this the Christian has nothing to do, for there is nothing little about his Lord.

(2) That of the Telescope – that makes the really big loom big.

The vessel may appear as a dot on the horizon but this instrument brings it out in its true proportions. Or, if you like, it brings the distant near. Thus is the believer’s joy: his body and being becoming a telescope, showing to others His true greatness, and bringing to those who see Him but far off the sense of His real nearness. When the Psalmist moves the proposition, “O magnify the Lord with me” (34:3), and when Paul seconds the resolution, “Christ shall be magnified” – it is this latter ministry that is in mind.

Guy King (1901-1969)
Joy Way: An Expositional Study of Philippians (1952), page 34
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