One Body

Free Church Report Table of Contents and Course Schedule
Recording #11 <mp3player width="300">http://www.hisholychurch.org/audio/FCRplacemark.mp3</mp3player>

Comments

Questions

*

*

*

:

*

One Body, One Corpus, One Church

The Church, properly organized according to the precepts of God and Christ, with its members dependent not upon the state, but upon themselves, can not arbitrarily be brought under another government. If that Ordered Church fulfills the duties, homage, and rituals of a government based on charity, hope, and mutual love, not only to itself, but to the congregation of people it serves and who are seeking His kingdom and His righteousness, then it not only has the right to exist with no further incorporation, but its rights are more excellent than those of collateral governments of the world who are found resorting to common methods of subjection, including arbitrary and forced governance, i.e. benefactors who exercise authority.

Are the Congregations and the Free Church considered one body in law?

While the Church, in its most general sense, would include the ordained ministers, those ministers acting in their ex officio capacity, and the members of congregations in free association, there is a very unique relationship established by the ordained Church as a body of ministers and congregations of people bound only by charity and love, and a loyalty to justice and mercy. The Church consists of self-governing qualified ordained ministers belonging to autonomous orders in a network of sacred trust and fidelity.

One definition or form of corporation is described here:

“Corporation (Latin corpus, a body). An artificial being created by law and composed of individuals who subsist as a body politic under a special denomination.”¹

Some people believe that a corporation has no rights because it is an artificial person. Nothing could be further from the truth. A corporation is often invested with the rights of its members, who are real persons. The extent, nature and form of that investment often changes the nature of the corporation. A corporation, including its representatives and its members, is, by agreement, application, and participation, a body politic. All national governments involve some of the fundamental aspects of incorporation.

Corporations require some sort of assignment, contribution, or investment to bind the body together and to give that corporate body an existence. In the corporate state, this investment is often composed of the people themselves, in the form of pledged rights or the right to do (or own) something.

Ancient societies often went under the authority of a ruling body who could choose to compel an equitable contribution for the welfare of society. Sometimes people would voluntarily contribute some portion or place something of value at the disposal of a body in hope of some return. In the former the people are snared under an exercising authority who may force contributions. In the latter the substance of the corpus would be established by freewill donations laid upon the altar of that body politic. It is this latter which we see Abraham, Moses, and Christ teaching and preaching. The former oppresses the people and is Nicolaitan.

Associations are often considered corporations from the point of view of the civil State. The congregation should not be considered a corporation. The congregation of the people - from the point of view of the Church - must always remain free. Although the families of the congregation may individually bind themselves to institutions of the world, any enfranchisement² of the Church by the corporate State would provide a nexus for the State to assume a role of authority within Christ’s Church.

“Corporation. An Artificial person or legal entity created by or under the authority of the laws of a state. An association of persons created by statute as a legal entity.”³

When Christ, like Moses, called out and appointed His ministers they became one body belonging to God under the conditions laid down by God through Moses and Jesus. Any enfranchisement⁴ of the ordained ministers by the corporate State would provide a nexus for the State to assume a role of authority within the whole body or corpus of the Church. Even the state recognizes that the legal process of applying for benefits by ordained ministers must be universal and irrevocable.⁵

How does one form a large body of individuals as one assembly, without the incorporation of some of the rights of the individual? In one sense the church is the whole body of the congregation and those who minister to it. In another sense there is a separation between the Church, specifically the ministers, and the status or state of the people. Can a portion of the corpus of the people be bound in the body of the Church without diminishing the rights of either?

It is important to make a distinction between the congregation as a fellowship and the Church as a body of Ministers. There are many examples of “free” churches who have blurred this distinction with disastrous results. It is the nature of those distinctions that have played a vital role in the success of the Church since its foundation.

The early Church was created by the authority and appointment of Jesus Christ, and consisted of those ministers who Jesus had trained up for this task of ministering to the people seeking His kingdom and its righteousness. The Church or “called out’” was a specific group gathered in one accord, including the 12 apostles and others who numbered 120 by name. At Pentecost we see thousands more being baptized into the whole church. All that were baptized were not appointed but in the most general sense they were all one body. Those who received Christ’s baptism were cast out⁶ of one system of authoritarian government of the Pharisees and entered a government of faith, hope, and charity under the perfect law of liberty.

Incorporation is often accomplished by a social contract created through the execution of oaths, applications, or acquiescence, if not acceptance. Under such conditions the people give up a share of their freedom and grant an exercising authority to others. Mankind is “called out” of such foolhardy infidelity to God. To make that exodus from such bondage possible and contiguous, Moses and Jesus appointed a body of Ministers who were called out to be separate. In hopes of becoming and remaining a free society under God, the people must remain separate from that body of ministers.

1Bouvier’s Law Dictionary

2Enfranchise (v. t.) To endow with a franchise; to incorporate into a body politic and thus to invest with civil and political privileges; to admit to the privileges of a freeman.

3Black’s Law Dictionary 6th ed.

4Enfranchise (v. t.) To endow with a franchise; to incorporate into a body politic and thus to invest with civil and political privileges; to admit to the privileges of a freeman.

5See rules on filing an SS16 and His Church Minister’s Manual.

6John 9:22 “These [words] spake his parents, because they feared the Jews: for the Jews had agreed already, that if any man did confess that he was Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue.”