The church about which Luke records in Acts 20:28 and from which this phrase “blood-bought institution” arises, cannot be an institution because “blood-bought” refers to the collection of individuals saved by the blood. It does not refer to local church organizations. We are not added to the local church organization by the blood of Christ anymore than we are baptized into a local church organization.
Some will defend the use of the words “institution” or “organization” to describe the church by concluding that if Jesus gave the church organization, then the church is an organization. The Lord gave my body organization, too. Does that make my body an organization? Taking that definition, most everything that has natural order is an organization. My microwave oven is an organization, according to this definition. Yet, this is not what is meant by “an organization.”
Similarly, we hear from our preachers that Jesus “instituted” the church. It must be proven that brethren interacting with each other necessitates the formation of an institution, as is affirmed by many teachers. The apostle Paul set in place the value of “togetherness” and serving “one another” in a number of different ways. Yet, this rule or pattern of work does not describe an institution, nor does it require one to be formed to carry out any work. To illustrate, I may institute a law for my home and call it “the law of morning prayer”. Does the morning prayer become an institution? It necessitates organization, but it does not require the formation of an organization with all the elements listed above. In the establishment of morning prayer as a practice of my family, one would not imagine the erection of an air-conditioned building in my back yard with padded knee rests, the formation of family officials who walk to their places in processional order. We do not imagine the need for a treasury to collect money to pay for professional prayer leaders, the electric bill and knee pad replacements. I use this only to illustrate what is meant by forming an institution or organization into which individuals are placed in order to work.
The position taken in this blog is that Christ purchased individual souls and that together they form a class of people described as “the called out.” He did not ordain a church organization, nor did he die for one. He purchased the church (ekklesia) with his own blood and this grand plan that brings all peoples into one body makes known “the manifold wisdom of God.” The insistence on defending the use of the word “institution,” “corporate,” or organization to describe the church appears to be the result of an institutional mindset that goes back to the influence of post-apostolic teaching. It associates the church with local churches that are organizations of the same denominational order. Each denomination is a corporate body that functions as an organization in its own denominational name. Each has their own identifying marks defined by its own doctrines, forms, colleges, papers, and church building with appropriate signage. Though these do not fairly represent everyone’s thinking, these are the product of the institutional mindset. Take only one or all; they are still the effect of such teaching.
If this institutional teaching was just an opinion held by a majority, it might be harmless. But, when it is taught that one must become a member of one of these human local institutions to be pleasing to God, it is no longer a harmless opinion. One extreme view follows the popular slogan of our day that says, “choose the church of your choice.” Another says, “place your membership” in the right church, making salvation dependent on membership in a particular church organization. Both support the church as an institutional entity. Associated with both views is the emphasis on what the “church” teaches and practices. Consequently, if one ever deviates from the expected formalities of established church doctrine, order, and forms, you are at once considered by many to be at risk for unsoundness and not a trusted steward of the gospel. Chances are great that you will lose your job from the authority of the acting decision-makers.
The attachment to the local organization is such a requirement that many will ignore real problems and tolerate error or sinful behavior just as long as they are good church members. In addition, when meeting someone for the first time, familiar associations are enough to determine whether one is from our organization and a part of our fellowship. For example, common grounds are established based on what preachers you know in common, what colleges you endorse, what periodicals you support or where you attend public worship. The answers to these questions determine the basis for fellowship because each of them aligns us with a particular tradition. The label given is rarely the biblical descriptions. Instead, we are proud to be associated with the organization’s name. It forms the “we,” the “our” and the “us” in the personal conversations of its members. For some, anyone outside that circle is outside the circle of fellowship, outside the institution (church), and for some traditions, outside the hope of eternal life.
Despite popular view, it isn’t the church organization that should define us. The Savior and the Word of God should be the standard. This includes the teaching of His apostles, too. Those who have surrendered their lives to Christ can say with Paul,
“I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ that lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20).
Luke 17:20-21 explains,
“And being asked by the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God comes, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God comes not with observation: neither shall they say, Lo, here! or, There! for lo, the kingdom of God is within you.”
These are the individual units that make up the church – those who have the spirit of Christ and are the “being saved ones” (Acts 2:47, 1 Cor. 1:18).
Again, either way you define “institution,” the church is not one. Nor is the verb “instituted” used in Scripture to describe Jesus’ action toward them. Jesus may have instituted the plan by which we may be saved, but the plan of salvation is not the church and it certainly is not the institutional church. Rarely, if ever, will anyone acknowledge that the saved (the “called out”) are the savior. That just would not make any sense. Yet, there are many teaching with unsound words that membership in the church institution/organization does save. To which was the Ethiopian identified in Acts 8? Was he baptized into the local church organization? If not, he was added to the saved without any affiliation with an organization. If he was saved without being a member of an organization, and yet you can’t be in fellowship with God without it, then when did he become unsaved? This man, like every other saint, was the largest and smallest functioning unit of spiritual work- himself. He could only represent himself and would one day give an account of himself to God (Rom. 14:12).