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The Church: A Critique of the Universal Church Theory
By Roger W. Maslin

PART II
CHAPTER I
THE FUNDAMENTAL IDEA

The prevailing and fundamental idea of ekklesia is that of a local body organized on democratic principles for purposes of worship and services. 1
      Having failed to find historical justification for the universal idea of a church, it becomes perti­nent that the fundamental idea be positively established.

      Importance, and Contribution of the Scientific Method of Approach. — The meaning of most words can be determined by referring to good dictionary but to determine the meaning of ekklesia in the New Testament requires an extended study.

     The advocates of the universal church theory insists that the word incontinently takes on the sense of an invisible church. Those who hold to the ideal concept assert that the word can represent an ideal assembly. Still others are persuaded that the word is not perverted in New Testament thought but consistently
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1 Dana, op. cit., p. 167.

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and persistently expreses the local idea either in concrete or generic uses.

     A few principles of language help make clear what the New Testament is expressing in the use of ekklesia.

     1. The etymological sense of a word is not necessarily the same as the meaning of the word today. For example, the word "hussy" came from "huswife" which means housewife; today a "hussy" means a worth­less woman or girl, or a pert girl. Also, the word "constable" comes from "come stabuli" which means "count of the stable" today this word means "a peace officer."

     This principle when applied to ekklesia, which is derived from "ek" and "calleo," meaning "to call out" shows the error of trying to establish that ekklesia means the "called out ones" as some have supposed, for it has been established that its etymon and meaning are not the same.1
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1 "There is no foundation for the widely spread notion that ekklesia means a people or number of individual men called out of the world or mankind." Hort, op. cit., p. 5.

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      Etymology has to be distinguished from meaning. The former haa to do with the origin or deriva­tion of a word while the latter indicates that which the word signifies. "Etymology" is the history of the origin of a word whereas "meaning" is what the word stands for in the present. The two may or may not coincide.

     2. Since a word may change in meaning or ac­quire more than one meaning as time passes its true meaning must be determined according to the time in which it was spoken.

     In Shakespeare's time the word "deer"1 meant any small animal; today it means a certain kind of animal. At one time the word "board" meant only a broad, thin piece of wood; today "board" still retains this meani­ng but it also may mean an official group of persons, or meals furnished for pay for a certain period. This rule applied to ekklesia would determine its meaning
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1 But mice and rats and such small deer
have been Tom's food for seven long year.
William Shakespeare, King Lear, Vol. XV of The Complete Works of William Shakerpeare, ed. Henry N. Hudson (Harvard Edition, Boston: Ginn & Company Publishers, 1900), Act 3, Scene 4, p. 92.

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by its usage in the New Testament age.

     3. Words may have more than one meaning, therefore the context must determine the meaning in a particular place.

     "Organ," for example, may mean a musical instrument or a part of the body. "Bat" may mean a flying creature, a stick used in baseball, or may be slang for a person not well liked. The meaning of a word may be singular, plural or even multiple, such as "strike" which is said to have approximately 31 meanings.

     It does not appear, however, that ekklesia has any meaning other than that of "assembly," but the assembly may be Jewish, Greek, or Christian.

     4. If a word has only one meaning and a writ­er or speaker wishes to give it a new meaning the con­text would make it obvious.1

     This rule is well illustrated by Paul's ref­erence to circumcision when he carefully explains that
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1 This is a generally accepted rule of interpretation but few have been willing to apply it to ekklesia, preferring rather their own theological distinctions.

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circumcision was not mere mutilation. What had for­merly been called circumcision he now brands as concision, and he very plainly introduces a spiritual basis as the designation for the term.1

     In like manner, he explains what he means by "Israel" when he introduces the concept of a spiritual Israel. He says: "For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel."2 Here it is plainly indicated by Paul's statement and following discussion that the identity of Israel is not based on blood lines, but on the app­rehension of spiritual truth.

     It does not appear, however, that ekklesia ever acquired a new meaning in apostolic times. It cannot be established that either Christ or the apostles gave it a new meaning. Since it makes good sense to consider ekklesia as a local assembly, and there is no explan­ation of a new concept, the meaning understood by the Greek readers must be accepted as the intended message.
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1 Cf. Phillippians 3:3.
2 Romans 9:6. "For not all who are of Israel's race are Israel." Translation by David Smith, The Life and Letters of St. Paul (New York: Harper & Broth­ers, n. d.), p. 427.

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     Dr. Broadus, a noted Bible and Greek scholar, discusses this principle to some length when he says:
     Now it is a most important principle in the interpretation of language, without the observance of which all interpretation becomes uncertain and unreliable, that whatever is the common and regular meaning of a word, as shown by its origin and gen­eral use, must be held to be its meaning every­where, until there shall be found some passage in which it cannot have that sense. Upon this prin­ciple, whether formally recognised or not, shcolars are constantly working.1
     In another place Dr. Broadus reiterates this great principle as he contends for the uniformity of meaning of a certain word:
     There are some examples in which it might have such a meaning, but none in which it must, for in every case the recognized meaning will answer, and so another sense is not admissible.2
     As applied to the case in point the recognized meaning of ekklesia is an assembly will fit every instance in which it is used, therefore, it is safe to say the universal idea is not admissible.

     5. The definite article "the" with a singular noun sometimes indicates a class or kind of object.
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1 John A. Broadus, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, Vol I of An American Commentary on the New Testament, ed. Alvah Hovy (6 vols.; (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1886), p. 40.
2 Ibid., p. 492.

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For example, a sentence which reads, "the elephant is the largest of quadrupeds," in no way limits the elephant to one. In this use "the" is often called the generic article. "The singular number with the generic the is practically equivalent to the plural without an article."1

     Dr. Robertson points out that "it is very common to find the singular used with the article in a representative sense for the whole class."2 There are many examples of this usage in the Scriptures3 and ekklesia is used this way in Ephesians and Colossians.

     Evidence Derived from Historical Usage. — In classical Greek ekklesia meant "an assembly." Liddel and Scott define ekklesia as "an assembly of the citizens summoned by the crier, the legislative
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1 G. L. Kittredge and F. E. Farley, An Advanced English Grammar (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1913) p. 77, sec. 174.
2 A. T. Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Reaearch (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1934), p. 757.
3 Luke 10:7 "Ho ergates" is an example where "the labourer" is put in a representative sense. Cf. "Ho agathos anthropos," "the good man" in Matthew 12:35.

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assembly."1 This is the classical usage of the word but its meaning "assembly" was adopted for Christian usage.

     Dr. Thomas finds evidence that in the classi­cal Greek ekklesia is "applied to local self-governing secular clubs or associations,"2 as well, as to the political assemblies. No instance has been found, however, of its application to unassembled or unassem­bling persons.

     Thayer defines the meaning of ekklesia in the New Testament as "a gathering of citizens called out from their homes into some public place; an assembly."3 This is the literal meaning - assembly - although it is used in different ways.

     Dr. George W. McDaniel distinguishes between the Greek usage and the Hebrew usage of ekklesia. He says: "among the Greeks ecclesia was the assembly
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1 Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford: At the University Press, n.d.), p. 388.
2 Thomas, op. cit., p. 212.
3Joseph Henry Thayer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, corrected edition (New York: American Book Company 1889), pp. 195, 196.

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of a free city-state gathered by a herald blowing a horn throught the streets of a town."1

     The same meaning is brought out as it was used in connection with the Hebrews, as Dr. McDaniei testified: "Among the Hebrews, ecclesia was the congregation of Israel assembled before the Tabernacle in the wilderness by the blowing of the silver trumpet."2

     In whatever connection ekklesia was used, there is no indication that there was any confusion regarding its meaning.

     Norman H. Snaith has pointed out an important rule for determining the meaning of a New Testament word. He says:

     It is essential, especially if the word in question is a religious word, to begin with Septuagint, and to notice to what extent Septuagint used the word as the equivalent of the original Hebrew.3
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1 George W. McDaniel, The Churches of the New Testament (New York: Richard R. Smith, Inc., 1930), p. 15.
2 Ibid.
3 Norman H. Snaith, The Distinctive Ideas of the Old Testament (Philadelphia: The Westminister Press, 1946), p. 206.
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     As he puts it, "The Septuagint Is the Bridge Between the Two Testaments"1

     Applying this rule to ekklesia the local idea is unquestionably proved to be the Hebrew idea expres­sed in ekklesia.

     In the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, ekklesia is used to translate "gahal" which is properly the actual meeting together of the Jewish nation. "Gahal" had always a human ref­erence of some sort, gathering of individual men or gathering of nations."2

     This word is to be distinguished from edhah which "is properly, when applied to Israel, the society itself, formed by the children of Israel or their representative heads, whether assembled or not assem­bled."3

     Both of these words gahal and edhah refer to the Israelitish community, but it is significant to note that only gahal means an assembly of the people,
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1 Ibid., p. 205.
2 Hort, op. cit., p. 4.
3 Ibid.

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and the Greek equivalent is ekklesia which also means "an assembly."

     The evidence from this study not only mili­tates against the universal church theory but consti­tutes a serious objection to any concept of spiritual Israel as being ideally an ekklesia.1 Rather spiritual Israel is an ideal, spiritual edhah.

     Since the New Testament was written in the koine (common) Greek, ekklesia naturally have the meaning expressed in that language at that time.

     Much of the difficulty that has arisen in this study is due to the fact that people have misunderstood the nature of koine Greek.

     The New Testament was being written approximately during the middle of the period when this language was used which "is roughly from 300 B. C. after Alexander's death to 330 A. D. the time when the seat of government was set up in Constantinople instead of Rome."2
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1 "For when gahal has the broad sense it is never translated by ekklesia. But by another Greek word." Thomas, op. cit., p. 200.
2 A. T. Robertson and W. Hershey Davis, A New Short Grammar of the Greek New Testament (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1933), p. 8.

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     It was once thought that the Greek of the New Testament was an "isolated language of the Holy Ghost." Since Deissmann's discoveries in 1895 of a great mass of Egyptian papyri, bearing hundreds of Bibical Greek words, it is now admitted that the New Testament was in reality a common first century Greek.

     Dr. J. H. Moulton, the eminent Greek scholar of Britain, has declared:

     Tho Holy Ghost spoke absolutely in the language of the people, as we might surely have expected he would. . . . The very grammar and dictionary cry out againnt men who would allow the Scriptures to appear in any other form than that "understanded of the people."1
     Dr. J. P. Free of Wheaton College, outstanding contemporary American archeologist says:
     During the last century, it was assumed that many words in the New Testament were peculiar to the Bible, and were not found in the ordinary language of the first century A. D. . . . Some even suggested that words were invented by the New Testament writers so as to convey certain ideas. This, however, would really hinder the message of the New Testament in reaching the people, for they would readily understand only those words which were familiar to them and would have
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1 James Hope Moulton, A Grammar of New Testament Greek. Vol. I Prolegomena, 3rd. ed. with corrections and additions (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1919), p. 5.
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difficulty in understanding the meaning of 'in­vented words.'1
     The archeological discoveries in Egypt in the latter part of the nineteenth century revealed thou­sands of documents which were preserved in the hot dry sands of that country. The reason that this discovery is so significant is that "these everday papyrus documents were written in the same type of Greek as used in the New Testament."2

     Dr. Free concludes:

     This demonstrated that the New Testament was not written in some artificial language containing many 'invented' words, but was actually written in the everyday Greek which would be intelligible to everyone.3
     Now, it is pure presumption to attach a new meaning to ekklesia unless it first be proved that it had such a meaning in New Testament times. The indica­tion is rather that its meaning was fixed and both Jesus and the Apostles used it in its generally accept­ed meaning.
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1 J. P. Free, Archeology and Bible History, a syllabus prepared for use in Wheaton College, 1945, p. 140.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
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     Dr. Armitage claims that "Jesus and his Apos­tles used it with the strictest regard to its etymology, and if we would catch their meaning in its use, we must interpret it by its primitive sense."1

     Jesus used the word ekklesia twenty-three times, three times in Matthew and twenty times in Revelation. In all but one of these instances it is generally ad­mitted that he referred to some local assembly. It is then assumed that he gave it a new meaning in Matthew 16:18. The fallacy is obvious. It would not be consistent with His genius as the Master Teacher to use ekklesia differently without clearly distinguishing or defining its new use.

     In the Greek text of the King James Version ekklesia is used 116 times. It in represented by "church" 113 times and by "assembly" 3 times in the English.

     In the Revised Version ekklesia is used 114 times. One hundred and ten times it is represented by "church"; 3 times "assembly" and once by "congregation."

     Even the advocates of the universal church theory must admit that in the great majority of cases
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1 Armitage, op. cit., p. 118.

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ekklesia refers to a local church. There is little or no agreement on the exact number of times.

     Dr. Hiscox, of this school, admits of ninety instances where ekklesia is applied to a "visible, local congregation."

     Concerning the passages which he feels refer to the universal invisible church, Dr. Hiscox says:

     And yet it is likely that some of the passages usually thus interpreted might, by a more careful exegesis, be found to bear the primary and literal meaning of a particular congregation. Certain it is that this literal meaning of the word is its first ruling signification, as is certified in a vast majority of cases.1

     Since the Apostle's letters were in the common Greek, what would the people understand by his use of ekkleaia? Unless he attached some differentiating adjective, or explained that he was giving a new meaning to the word they could only associate it with a familiar idea - that of an assembly. But the Apostle did not employ either of these expedients so it must be concluded that the people understood him to refer to the local church in some sense.
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1 Edward T. Hiscox, The New Directory for Baptist Churches (Philadelphia: The Judson Press, 1945), p. 25.

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     The significance of all the mateial intro­duced in this study so far is that all historical and literal sources are agreed that ekklesia means a local assembly. According to the Hebrew thought that is carried over into the Greek, the classical signi­ficance of the word, the koine usage, and New Testament usage, there is unanimous agreement that the ekklesia is exclusively local in nature.

     The Fundamental Idea of "Ecclesia" Misrepre­sented by "Church." — It is unfortunate that the modern and misleading word "church" has been used to translate ekklesia. This Greek word translated in the English Bible as "church" expresses more than the word "church" and yet it limits and defines its boundaries of use more.

     An interesting history attaches itself to the word "church." The general agreement among scholars now is that it comes not from eklesia but from the Greek kuriakon.

     Now the word 'kuriakon' is simply the adjective neuter from 'kurios,' Lord, and means that which is the Lord's, that is, the Lord's place, the Lord's house. . . and from that it has been extended to all the various significations which it has
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acquired in the progress of language.1
     Because of the multiplicity of definitions for "church" it is far from accurate in expressing the idea of assembly, for in its meaning today, assembly is only one of its definitions. It may also mean the building in which the assembly meets, the service, the clerical profession, all of one denomination, all professing Christians, all true Christians living, or all true Christians living or dead. And these are only some of the most common meanings.

     It would be better if the word "church" were not used in the English Bible. At first the word meant only the Lord's house, the building where the ekkiesia (assembly) met. It did not translate the word ekklesia then, and today it has such a variety of meanings that it is too ambigous to translate the word even though one of tho meanings of the word "church" is assembly.

     The English term church, now the most familiar representative of ecclesia to most of us, carries with it associations derived from the institutions
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1 E. H. Bancroft, Christian Theology (Johnson City, N. Y.: Johnson City Publishing Company, 1930), p. 121.
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and doctrine of later times, and this cannot at present without a constant mental effort be made to convey the full and exact force which original­ly belonged to ecclesia.1
     The word "church" is not in some of the early English versions but the Greek word ekklesia is more correctly translated "congregation."

     Tyndale's Bible, Coverdale's Bible, Cramner's Bible (The Great Bible) and other versions use the word "congregation."

     "Congregation" was the only rendering of ekkesia in the English New Testament as it stood throughout Henry VIII's reign, the substitution of 'church' being due to the Genevan revisers; and it held its ground in the Bishop's Bible in no leas primary a passage than Matthew xvi:18 till the Jacobean revision of 1611, which we call the authorized version.2
     If the King James translators had been left to work independently and unmolested, "congregation" could possibly have continued until this present day. King James sent his translators 15 rules to go by, however. The third rule stated that "the old eccles­iastical words to be kept, viz., the word church not to be translated congregation." etc."3
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1 Hort, op. cit., p. 1.
2 Ibid. p. 2.
3 H. W. Hoare, The Evolution of the English Bible (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. 1901), p. 225.
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     "Essential Elements of "Ecclesia." - Now then, locality1 or visibility, and organization are fundamental, to any idea of an ekklesia.

     It is also necessary to distinguish ekklesia or assembly from a mob, company or crowd.

     A church is not a mob, or a mass meeting. It is more than a congregation. John the Baptist preached to multitudes and many of the people followed his teaching but they were not a church. They were unorganized.2

     Dr. Weston shows how essential the idea of organization was to the assembly or ekklesia.

     The inhabitants of a city and the members of the ecclesia were not the same. Membership was founded sometimes on birth, sometimes on property, sometimes on residence, but the rights of citizen­ship were always defined and guarded with great exactness and the regulations regarding citizenship were very strict.3
     Dr. Armitage concludes:
     Of all the Greek terms which designate a calm and deliberative convocation, this was the most appropriate to characterize a body of Christians,
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1 "Locality inheres in ecclesia. There can be no assembly now or hereafter without a place to meet."
2 McDaniel, op. cit., p. 23.
3 Weston, op. cit., p. 317.
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charged by their Master with concerns of vast moment. Other words would have carried with them the idea of a crowd, of a show, or of a purely governmental assembly, such as the Senate; having other elements than that merely of a properly organized assembly.1
     Actually, there is no expediency making it imperative that ekklesia be extended to embrace a larger entity or foreign concept of a universal whole, or aggregate of believers. Dr. Thomas has pertinently said:
     It does not follow that because a truth or fact is universal in character, it must express itself through a vehicle universal in extent. The law of the heavenly worlds is revealed in the raindrop. The Son of God was 'revealed' in Paul. God is 'glorified' in his individual saints.2
     It thus follows that everywhere in the New Testament the undisputed fundamental idea of the ekklesia is that of a visible organized assembly.
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1 Armitage, op. cit., p, 119.
2 Thomas, op. cit., pp. 270, 271.
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