Ekklesia: The Nature of the Christ's Courts, Part 1
by Dr. Patti Amsden
by Dr. Patti Amsden
When Jesus was authorizing His ekklesia to manage His Kingdom on the earth, He knew that they would need to think legislatively, meaning knowing what would be legal and what would be illegal (Matt. 16:18-19), and they would also need to think judicially, meaning how consequences would need to be enforced if the rules were not adhered to (Matt. 18:15-19). God thought that way. When He empowered Adam and Eve to manage the earth as His kingdom representatives, God imparted legislation in the form of “Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat” and a judicial edit in the form of “in the day that you eat from it, you shall surely die.” Both the law and the judgments constituted the keys for kingdom management.
If Adam and Eve had validated God’s legislation and served as witnesses for the law when the serpent introduced another ethic, they would have activated the judicial process. The serpent would have been under their verdict (metaphorically under their feet). The two witnesses could have agreed upon the enemy’s guilt and bound him in his transgression. Their judicial sentence would have remained in force until God returned to the Garden and, in His role as the Eternal Judge, removed Satan from the earth and incarcerated him in the Lake of Fire (Rev. 20:10) based upon the power of their testimony.
Giving the rules and enforcing the rules are two sides of the same process. There is no need to give a rule if there is no prosecution system in place to carry it out. Without enforcement, no ethic is established; it is simply a suggestion. This reality is woven into every level of society. For example, consider parents who tell the children to pick up their toys but the children decide to ignore the decree. The parents, either ignorant of the principle or weary from the tutoring process, elect to not enforce a punishment. The toys are not removed; the parents’ mandate is invalidated; and by default, the ethic of the children is established. This same axiom – he who enforces is the rule-setter – can be found in sports, business, civil governments, and even international affairs.
God operated in both legislative and judicial authority. He granted both to the first couple. He offered both to the Israelites at the time when Moses’ ekklesia was formed (refer back to previous articles). Jesus did the same. Jesus granted power to His ekklesia to pattern earthly laws after heaven’s pattern and then to hold courts to establish guilt or innocence along with corresponding sentences. Jesus’ church was mandated to hold church courts and thus establish the ethic of heaven in the arena of covenant members’ conduct.
Matthew 18:15-19 outlines three levels in the judicial process of the ekklesia. Verse 15 reads, “Moreover, if your brother shall trespass against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he shall hear you, you have gained your brother.” Notice first, that the resolution process is based upon the fact that there has been a trespass. A trespass is a boundary violation, which is another way of communicating the idea of a broken law. If there is no previously established law or ethic, the act might not fall under the category of a trespass even though it might be lacking brotherly kindness or even be considered immoral. Jesus’ instruction presumed that His church would be operating under a code of ethics and that the code of ethics had been ignored or violated by the accused.
The above translation reads, “go tell him his fault.” The sentence construction in English has the “tell” as the verb and “fault” as a noun. In the Greek construction, “tell” and “fault” are the same word, elencho, a verb or action word meaning to convince, convict, or rebuke. The brother to brother confrontation is depicted as a verbal conversation centered around a broken ethic (convince), the resoluteness or importunity of that ethic (convict), and the call to acknowledgement of and repentance from that trespass (rebuke). The actual language does not confer the idea of the trespasser having a fault – like a soulish imperfection – that causes relational conflict. Although, helping one’s brothers and sisters mature, overcome hindrances, and advance in holiness is a privilege and responsibility executed within the context of community. The Matthew 18 passage under discussion is depicting levels of court and judicial actions with the purpose of the court hearing addressing a trespass.
The person going to “tell the fault” is acting as a covenantal prosecutor in order that the guilty verdict, if merited, may be fixed upon both the trespasser and the trespass. Guilt leads to repentance, which leads to forgiveness, which releases the eradication of the guilt. A failure to acknowledge sin and accept guilt does not facilitate repentance; and without repentance, the guilty party remains guilty before God and within his own conscience. When the trespassing brother acknowledges his sin and turns from it, he may be restored as a brother. Only through repentance can a brother be regained.
Learn more about the brother to brother court system in the next article.
If Adam and Eve had validated God’s legislation and served as witnesses for the law when the serpent introduced another ethic, they would have activated the judicial process. The serpent would have been under their verdict (metaphorically under their feet). The two witnesses could have agreed upon the enemy’s guilt and bound him in his transgression. Their judicial sentence would have remained in force until God returned to the Garden and, in His role as the Eternal Judge, removed Satan from the earth and incarcerated him in the Lake of Fire (Rev. 20:10) based upon the power of their testimony.
Giving the rules and enforcing the rules are two sides of the same process. There is no need to give a rule if there is no prosecution system in place to carry it out. Without enforcement, no ethic is established; it is simply a suggestion. This reality is woven into every level of society. For example, consider parents who tell the children to pick up their toys but the children decide to ignore the decree. The parents, either ignorant of the principle or weary from the tutoring process, elect to not enforce a punishment. The toys are not removed; the parents’ mandate is invalidated; and by default, the ethic of the children is established. This same axiom – he who enforces is the rule-setter – can be found in sports, business, civil governments, and even international affairs.
God operated in both legislative and judicial authority. He granted both to the first couple. He offered both to the Israelites at the time when Moses’ ekklesia was formed (refer back to previous articles). Jesus did the same. Jesus granted power to His ekklesia to pattern earthly laws after heaven’s pattern and then to hold courts to establish guilt or innocence along with corresponding sentences. Jesus’ church was mandated to hold church courts and thus establish the ethic of heaven in the arena of covenant members’ conduct.
Matthew 18:15-19 outlines three levels in the judicial process of the ekklesia. Verse 15 reads, “Moreover, if your brother shall trespass against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he shall hear you, you have gained your brother.” Notice first, that the resolution process is based upon the fact that there has been a trespass. A trespass is a boundary violation, which is another way of communicating the idea of a broken law. If there is no previously established law or ethic, the act might not fall under the category of a trespass even though it might be lacking brotherly kindness or even be considered immoral. Jesus’ instruction presumed that His church would be operating under a code of ethics and that the code of ethics had been ignored or violated by the accused.
The above translation reads, “go tell him his fault.” The sentence construction in English has the “tell” as the verb and “fault” as a noun. In the Greek construction, “tell” and “fault” are the same word, elencho, a verb or action word meaning to convince, convict, or rebuke. The brother to brother confrontation is depicted as a verbal conversation centered around a broken ethic (convince), the resoluteness or importunity of that ethic (convict), and the call to acknowledgement of and repentance from that trespass (rebuke). The actual language does not confer the idea of the trespasser having a fault – like a soulish imperfection – that causes relational conflict. Although, helping one’s brothers and sisters mature, overcome hindrances, and advance in holiness is a privilege and responsibility executed within the context of community. The Matthew 18 passage under discussion is depicting levels of court and judicial actions with the purpose of the court hearing addressing a trespass.
The person going to “tell the fault” is acting as a covenantal prosecutor in order that the guilty verdict, if merited, may be fixed upon both the trespasser and the trespass. Guilt leads to repentance, which leads to forgiveness, which releases the eradication of the guilt. A failure to acknowledge sin and accept guilt does not facilitate repentance; and without repentance, the guilty party remains guilty before God and within his own conscience. When the trespassing brother acknowledges his sin and turns from it, he may be restored as a brother. Only through repentance can a brother be regained.
Learn more about the brother to brother court system in the next article.