Previous installments: Introduction, Part 1, Part 2.
To summarize Otis Q. Sellers’s teaching on ekklēsia presented so far in this series, “by the rule of usage in the New Testament,” καλέω (kaleō) means “to position, to appoint, to place, to name, or to designate.”
These terms are synonymous, “agreeing in the sense of declaring a person as being one’s choice for an office or position. It was also shown that to call, summon, invite, and bid are secondary meanings.”
Furthermore, ἐκκλησία (ekklēsia) “was formed by the addition of [ἐκ] ek (out) to the verbal adjective [κλητός] kletos, and that this combination means ‘out-positioned,’ also, that this word can be applied to any individual, company, or nation that has a position out of another.”[1]
This word is a participle; that is, a word that combines the characteristics of a verb with an adjective. It can correctly be parsed as a verbal adjective, and in Scripture is used as a noun.
Sellers then considers those he calls “ekklēsia men,” Melchizedek, Abraham, Moses, and Aaron.
The mysterious man Melchizedek . . . was a priest of the most high God (Hebrews 7:1), and he was the king of Salem. His position, both as king and priest of that city-state, was out of God. Therefore, we can truly say that he was an out-positioned or ekklēsia man. See Genesis 14:18-20.
Of Abraham, God said: “He is a prophet, and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live” (Genesis 20:7). God declared him, named him, a prophet-priest.
His position was out of God. He functioned as such to Abimelech (Genesis 20:1-18). It is also clear that his position is a permanent one, and that he will function as such in the Kingdom of God (Luke 13:28-29).
As a judge-priest in Israel (Exodus 18:15-16), Moses was most certainly an ekklēsia man.
At first, he was alone in this, the only man in Israel with an official position out of God. However, this changed, and in Exodus 18:18-24 we read of an arrangement, made at the suggestion of Jethro, that added about 80,000 men to the judges in Israel. This configuration, even though approved by God, still left too heavy a burden upon Moses, and at his complaint, God arranged to ease the burden (Numbers 11:10-15). These seventy men are actually called ekklēsia in Acts 7:38, and are referred to as the body of Moses [Μωϋσέως σώματος, Mōuseōs sōmatos] in Jude 1:9.
Of Aaron it was said: “And no man taketh this honor unto himself, but he that is called (kaleō [i.e., καλούμενος, kaloumenos]) of God, as was Aaron” (Hebrews 5:4). And let’s not forget the major prophets:
Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel had their positions out of God, and could be designated as ekklēsia men in harmony with the way the Greeks used this term. The boy David was only a shepherd, but after his anointing to be king of Israel he had a position out of God. This position is a perpetual one. Death interrupted it, but did not end it. David will again be the Shepherd-king of Israel in the day when God governs the nations of the earth. See Jeremiah 30:9; Ezekiel 34:23-24; 37:24-25; Hosea 3:5.
Sellers brings this to bear on the meaning of ekklēsia in the New Testament:
The disciples of Christ were simply learners. They had no position out of Him. They were not ekklēsia men individually and did not form an ekklēsia collectively. However, at one point in His ministry, after a night of prayer, He called unto Him His disciples. Out of these He chose (or elected: ἐκλεξάμενος, eklexamenos) twelve, whom also He named (ὠνόμασεν, ōnomasen) apostles (ἀποστόλους, apostolous) (Luke 6:12-13).
“The full significance of this action,” Sellers continues, “has long been ignored and stultified” by those who insist on reading back into Scripture not only themselves but also the societies (“churches”) to which they belong and which lack that status.
The very fact that it followed a night of communion with the Father should denote its importance. In this action, Jesus Christ, who was God’s apostle (Hebrews 3:1), gave of Himself, even of His substance (essential nature) to these twelve men, resulting in each one becoming an out-positioned one, or ekklēsia man. Individually and personally they were an ekklesia, and collectively they became the ecclesia to all other disciples.[2]
These twelve men, formerly merely disciples, became “the foundational ekklēsia, the very rock upon which the Lord declared He would build of Himself the ekklēsia.[3]
The multitude of Israelites who became disciples of the Lord Jesus certainly required that there be men with a position out of Christ in order to handle all the complex matters that would arise among them. The actual functioning of this ekklēsia in the days of our Lord on Earth is clearly set forth in Matthew 18:15-20. . . .
Two steps are presented in this passage. If the first one produced no result, it then became a legal matter, and the second step should provide witnesses so the matter can be properly presented to the ekklēsia. As believers, living in and under God’s Administration of Grace, we can take the first step if we so desire, but we cannot righteously take the second step. If the first fails, then we can only fall back on the directive given in Ephesians 4:32: “And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, dealing graciously ([χαριζόμενοι], charizomenoi) one with another, even as God also in Christ deals graciously ([χαριζόμενοι], charizomenoi) with you.”[4]
During Jesus Christ’s earthly ministry (which preceded the Acts dispensation):
it was a different matter. If the first two steps failed to produce the desired result, then the offended one with his witnesses was to tell it to the ekklēsia, men with a position out of Christ who could bind or loose a matter upon Earth and it would be bound or loosed in heaven. If the offender refused to hear the ekklēsia, then he was to be treated as a man of the nations and a tax-gatherer (Matthew 18:17).[5]
Being out-positioned by Christ inhered in the individual, not in the twelve collectively:
In this context the Lord declared that if any two of them agreed on Earth as touching anything they shall ask, it shall be done for them (Matthew 18:19). Two apostles made a quorum. Our Lord emphasized this by saying: “For where two or three are gathered in My name [under My authority], there am I in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20).
Everything, of course, hangs on what it means to have the right to do something in His name, a privilege that too many today arrogate to themselves:
For anyone to take the two statements cited above and apply or relate them to prayer or to meetings where the attendance is small is a misappropriation, a misapplication, and an abuse of Scripture to the nth degree and should be branded as theological japery. Let there be no misunderstanding. There was during the Lord’s earthly ministry a band of twelve men who were individually ekklesia men, and who were collectively the Lord’s ekklesia, and they functioned as such. Anyone who received these men as Christ’s commissioned ones (apostles) also received the Lord Jesus (Matthew 10:40).[6]
In Luke 16:1 we read that there was a certain rich man, who had a steward: the latter’s position was out of the rich man, who had delegated some of his power and authority to him.
Therefore, this steward was an out-positioned man and could be described as ekklēsia. From this it becomes apparent that Paul’s greeting to the ekklēsia that was in Philemon’s house (Philemon 1:2) was to his administrator, an individual who was a part of his household.
In Acts 19:32, 39, 41 we find the Greek word ekklēsia three times. It is translated “assembly” in all these occurrences, and this would not be a bad translation if we understand what an assembly is. This was a legislative and judicial assembly, and all such must be composed of assemblymen.[7]
The “word ekklēsia reaches its highest peak,” Sellers writes, “when it is used of Jesus Christ. This is found in Ephesians 3:10.”
The position of Jesus Christ is out of God. He is the preeminent Out-Positioned One. It is through Him that the manifold wisdom of God is now being made known to the sovereignties and authorities among the most elevated. To Him belongs such a task and the glory of it.
To Be Continued
Notes
[1] Otis Q. Sellers, “Ekklēsia Men,” Seed & Bread, No. 115; ND, but late ‘70s. Emphasis added. Quotations in this post are from this study.
[2] Sellers, “Ekklēsia Men.” Sellers stresses that “they could not be an ekklesia collectively unless each one was ekklēsia personally.” That is, the individual didn’t become out-positioned by joining a collective that jointly “owned” the characteristic of being out-positioned. “The United States Senate (a legislative ekklēsia) is an example of this. It must be made up of a hundred men who individually are senators, men whose positions are out of their states. You cannot become a senator by joining the Senate, and you cannot form the Senate by organizing a hundred ordinary men.”
[3] “The presence of Judas among these creates no problem. The Lord will do the cleansing work that eliminated Judas, even as He will purge all others that should be eliminated before He presents it to Himself as a glorious ekklēsia, not having spot, wrinkle, or blemish. See Ephesians 5:25, 27.”
[4] Emphasis added.
[5] “[C. I.] Scofield’s statement that this passage deals with ‘Discipline in the future church’ is a theological absurdity.”
[6] Emphasis added.
[7] “All members of the California State Assembly,” Sellers wrote when he lived in that state, “must have a position out of the district that elects them. They form a legislative assembly which meets at certain stated times or when called into session by the governor. If they should meet on their own volition, it would not be a legal assembly. No group of men can get together and organize an assembly. An assembly must be organized out of assemblymen, even as an ekklēsia must be composed of ekklēsia men.”