THE REMNANT (Catching the Spirit of the Fathers) By Louis Eke – Part 3

One major problem that the Church has had to grapple with over the centuries since the exit of the foundational apostles, has  been  that  of  adhering  strictly  to  God's leadership requirements  and  order  as  exemplified by  the  apostles themselves, while at the same time struggling for relevance in a world whose ideals differ extensively from the ideals of the Church.

The lack of apostolic authority on the part of those who received the mantle from the foundational apostles, no doubt, accounted for the quenching of the apostolic flame soon after the first apostles left the stage. Man-made traditions and innovations replaced spirit-led activities, worship and fellowship. Christianity was reduced to mere ritual – a feature of the religions of this world. The life of God was shut out and the fire that was kindled by the apostles merely smouldered through the Dark Age, so-called because of the lost impact of Christianity, until it burst into flame again in the 1500s.

Enter the Reformations

Because God's plan cannot be thwarted, He raised a company of saints in early 16th Century led by Martin Luther, who sounded an alarm and called the Church to repentance and to return to the truth which was handed down by the apostles; that salvation or forgiveness of sin was not purchased with money (sale of indulgence) but received through faith in the resurrected Christ (justification by faith). The only existing institutionalised church at that time and which was the target of Luther's criticism (Catholicism) excommunicated Luther from the local church because he refused to recant the famous 95 Theses, which he nailed to the church door at Wittenberg (Germany). But God picked a remnant of His children and thus the Reformation Movement, the first of its kind, was born.

But if one may stop to ask; why did the light go out in the first place? Why was the work of the early Church eclipsed so soon after the first apostles left the scene? The answer to these questions can hardly be arrived at by any effort at intellectual juggling. 

But under close spiritual scrutiny, it would be observed that the reason was because there was no proper adherence to the right order of apostolic succession as was, informally though, defined by Jesus when He passed the mantle of Church leadership to the apostles. The apostles, in turn, in their individual capacities, raised some other elders in the same tradition to step in after them. This is evident from the burden with which Paul and Peter (two of the apostles) sounded it in the ears of their successors.

And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.

Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them and be established in the present truth. Yea, I think it meet as long as I am in this tabernacle to stir you up by putting you in remembrance....  Moreover I will endeavour that ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance. (2 Peter 1:12, 13, 15).

History equally has it that John, the last of the apostles to pass on to the Lord, after his release from exile on the island of Patmos, spent his last days in the city of Ephesus where he assembled some elders in the church and trained them. These elders thereafter became leaders in the 2nd Century Church, among whom were Polycarp, Ignatius of Antioch and some others, all referred to as the apostolic fathers. In his first letter to Christians, John exhorted that they should stick to what the apostles had taught them in the face of the false teachings that started to infiltrate the Church.

Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father. (1 John 2:24).

In the leadership of the Church, the importance of generational succession along the path of sound apostolic truth is of utmost significance. God's pattern is for one generation to succeed another, following in the pathway created by the preceding generation, as humanity heads toward the end of time. This was what Jesus had in mind when He instructed His apostles to teach others as He had taught them. This they fulfilled as would be observed from the earlier example of the apostles – Peter, Paul and John. Unfortunately, soon after they left, their successors could not guard what was committed to them, but allowed all kinds of infiltration into the organised church both in practice and doctrine.

For instance, Ignatius who himself, according to historical records, was one of those trained by Apostle John, in reaction to the heresy against the Church and the problem of leadership posed by the steady upsurge of the 2nd Century Church, proposed submission to one person — the bishop — as against the  apostolic tradition of plurality of church leadership. Sincere as his intention might have been (for his motive was to have a central figure or voice to make pronouncements to counter invading false teachings and heresies); his proposition laid the foundation for the exaltation of the bishop's office above others and the subsequent enthronement of the Pope as a small god over the Catholic Church.

(To be continued)