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AbideinHim
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 The Nature of the Church - Sparks


From “The Risen Lord and Things That Cannot Be Shaken
By T. Austin Sparks

The Nature of the Church
(a) Constitution

What is it that constitutes the Church? The Church is not constituted upon the Christian creed; nor upon a set of beliefs; nor by assent to certain doctrinal propositions. The Church is not constituted by asking people to join it, become members of it, adherents, but the Church is constituted by the transmission of the risen life of the Lord. Reproduction is its law of increase.

Increase may be brought about in two ways. One is the way of imitation. You can turn out so many things as by a mould, that is, by making so many things on the same pattern, and thus increasing, multiplying by imitation. It hardly needs saying that such is not the New Testament way with regard to the growth of the Church. That is not the New Testament way of reproduction. The other way is by conception, that is, the out-growth of life from within, the form which life takes when it expresses itself, when it has its way. It is inward rather than outward. The difference between imitation and what is conceived is the difference between what is dead and what is alive. One is made, the other is born, and the constitution of the Church is the result of the activity and energy of a life, the Lord's own risen life, being transmitted, passed on. Whatever you may develop, you will never get a development of the true Church unless the risen life of Christ is operative and is there in sufficient measure to be transmitted by the Spirit.


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Mike

 2018/7/8 8:28Profile





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