The Restoration of the House

The great captivities of Israel and their respective returns are an allegory of the restoration of the church.

Eliseo Apablaza

Every time that we speak of the restoration of the church, we tacitly assume that it is in a position of deterioration. If not, we would not speak of restoration. The word "restoration" refers to a return to a state of normality which it is not in.

Considering that in the New Testament we fundamentally find the normality of the church, and don't therefore have enough examples to deal with this topic, the Old Testament is useful because it shows us certain figures; the spiritual things that would later become a reality and concreted in this time.

Under the figure of Israel, we have an entire great metaphor of what the church is. Israel suffered two great stages of captivity with two respective returns; they speak about the church in its captivity and in its return.

One of those periods of captivity appears in the Bible, in the VI century before Christ, when Israel -specifically the Kingdom of Judah - was taken captive to Babylon for seventy years. Then the Lord brought back a remnant, who returned to their land.

And the other great captivity of the nation of Israel is the one that happened in the year 70 A.D., when the city of Jerusalem was destroyed, and the nation of Israel was dispersed all over the world. This lasted until the year 1948.

Therefore, the return process of these captivities, both from Babylon to Jerusalem and the later dispersion of the nation of Israel alike are two periods of restoration of the nation of Israel that give us some examples about the restoration of the church.

The return from the first captivity

After the first captivity we find three restoration movements. The first one was headed up by Zerubbabel, the governor, Joshua, a priest, and approximately fifty thousand Jews. The second was headed up by Ezra, about eighty years later, with about one thousand seven hundred men. And Nehemiah, the cupbearer of Artaxerxes, was in charge of the third, with military escort.

Some spiritual principles

From the first captivity's return we will extract some principles about what the restoration of the church means.

The first thing that we can say is that the restoration of the church is a work of God. Israel was captive for seventy years in Babylon. Seventy years represent the period of a man's life. Then, when a man's life finishes, God intervenes. Those seventy years in Babylon speak to us about how Israel died according to their natural life, because flesh and blood cannot do the work of restoration. Only at the end of the seventy years was God able to do something.

The work of restoration began when the Lord "stirred up - the Scripture textually states - the spirit of king Cyrus." How interesting this sentence is. And not only king Cyrus, but also -it says - heads of fathers' houses of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests, and the Levites, so that they would go up to Jerusalem. So Cyrus doesn't just authorize, but rather he encourages the Jews who wanted to go up to edify the house. (Ezra 1:1-5).

We know that the construction that began with so much joy and even with tears of joy, was interrupted for fifteen or sixteen years. And then, when it seemed that everything would remain lost, God again stirred up spirits, this time, of Zerubbabel, of Joshua and of all the people, so that they would take on the work once again. (Haggai 1:14-15).

What does that show? That God is not only He who begins the work, but also He who renews and encourages it when it stops. Indeed, every time the people were discouraged, God sent a prophet, a Haggai or a Zachariah, to encourage them.

When examining the book of Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Haggai and Zachariah which are historically located in this time, we find something astonishing: that God used three Persian kings -Cyrus, Darius and Artaxerxes, tremendously powerful kings who almost had the whole world in their hands -, to favor the work of restoration.

He even used Esther, the wife of Ahasuerus, so that 'behind the scenes' she also helped the Jews. It is thought that Esther had a great influence over Artaxerxes - his stepchild - to support Ezra and Nehemiah. God mobilized the whole political atmosphere. The main kings of the earth favored the work of God. They even used money out of their own pocket and from the royal arks. It is a work of God; God has it in His hands. He moves all that has to move, so that it is carried out. The same will be true in our days.

Restoration is a series of progressive movements

Second thing: Restoration is more than an isolated act; it is a series of progressive movements. Each one of these three returns added a new element that enriched the previous one and made it advance.

In the first restoration movement in which Zerubbabel and Joshua participated, worship was restored with the construction of the altar. It was there that they renovated their fellowship with God.

Where could God begin a movement of restoration? Wherever there are Christians who recover their quality as worshipers. Because the restoration is not an administrative matter that only objective Christians can carry out. Men are needed who burn inside, who have had a revelation of God, who have an inner knowledge, who feel that their heart is an altar from which incense of adoration and of worship ascends to the Lord.

Then, the year following the Jews' arrival in Jerusalem the restoration of the house began, because they put down the foundations.

The second movement of restoration, headed up by Ezra, brought an advancement in as much as the beautifying of the temple. Ezra was a learned scribe; he recovered the Word. If we notice, in the first restoration the prophetic ministry stood out, with Haggai and Zachariah. They brought the prophetic word to encourage the people. But once the house was already restored, and they began to perform different occupations, teaching of the Word became necessary. Thus, when Ezra read the Word and exposed it to people, the listeners cried with emotion. The restoration of the Word is a very important element in the restoration of the house, because the Word shows us what God always wanted, and makes us move in the direction that God wants.

And the third restoration movement, when Nehemiah was in charge, consisted of the reconstruction of the wall that has to do with external testimony.

That is to say, the restoration begins, first, with the construction of the altar, that is to say, with the restoration of the individual believer's relationship with God. Then, it continues with the recovery of the Word, the Word that washes the church and feeds it, and that beautifies it. And then, when that is completed, the wall comes. And the wall speaks to us of the testimony toward the outside. When the church is composed of worshipers, edified by one another, washed by the Word, then the church can shine, and show its external beauty.

The restoration embraces more than one generation

A third principle: The restoration embraces more than one generation. The whole period that Nehemiah, Ezra, Haggai and Zachariah shows us, embraces more or less one hundred years. If the restoration had only taken seventy years, we might think that it was a single generation; but from the moment that it extends over a hundred years, we already have two generations. Zerubbabel and Joshua belonged to the first generation, and Ezra with Nehemiah belonged to the second. Very probably when Zerubbabel went to Jerusalem, Ezra had still not been born.

It is interesting to observe a difference among both generations. In the first cortege many old men, filled with nostalgia went for the glory of Solomon's temple. However, that movement of restoration didn't leave things as they should be. The same happens with the restoration generations. A first generation can often be impelled mostly by moving sentiments. When suddenly you see something of God, a generation feels precursor, and you are filled with very great emotion; but that generation won't be able to conclude the work. A generation that has something else will come later; that is, the testimony of the Scriptures.

Many restoration movements have happened in the church since the end of the Middle Ages. One brother says that when looking at the history of the church we can see a very important movement of restoration every hundred years:

In 1420, with John Huss and the Moravians. They saw the Babylonian captivity of the church and they decided to live outside its margins. In 1520 the recovery of the Word came by means of Luther, Calvin and Zwingli. But, parallel with that, and perhaps more important than that, was the presence of the Anabaptists who discovered the truth of regeneration, of baptism, and the non participation of Christians in political matters.

In 1620, in the times of rationalism, movements arose which emphasized the interior life, like the mystics, pietists, etc. In 1727 was Zinzendorf and the community of Herrnhut, where a prayer chain which lasted a hundred years began, exactly up to 1820, when the movement of the brothers of Plymouth arose in England who recovered the vision of the Body.

In 1920, China. Watchman Nee and what is known as "The Small Flock" is, perhaps, the most serious and consistent movement of restoration in the last centuries, which has inspired and today continues inspiring all the big movements of restoration throughout the whole world.

What point are we at, if this hundred year pattern was completed before the Lord comes? Would we perhaps, around the year 2020, see an explosive, wonderful thing happen, something that marks the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ? Perhaps it could be the final step for the church recovering the glory that it had at the beginning. Do we dream of that? Let us dream, brothers, let us dream of a glorious church; we dream of a church without stain and without blemish! Let us dream of an undivided church!

A work carried out with great fragility

Fourth: Restoration is a work that is developed amid great fragility and simplicity. When we read Ezra and Nehemiah, one of the first things that gets our attention is that all that happens there, the men that intervene, the movements that are carried out, the people, the materials that are used, everything, everything, is so precarious, so modest. They are few in number, they are weak; they are under the dominance of a foreign king, they don't have autonomy, they go along filled with fears, because the enemies watch. It seems as if everything will fall.

What will the pattern of the work of restoration for the church today be? Will it be like the days of the Acts of the Apostles, where everything is glory, where everything is miracles, with thousands being converted at once, when the gifts over abound, etc, etc.? Will that be the pattern of restoration? Or will it be a different one, that of a restoration under such different conditions?

What is it that we see today? Are there great Peters among us, great Pauls, great Stephens who perform incredible miracles? Or do we see small men rather like Nehemiah who tremble, and who face so much adversity?

Zerubbabel is not like Solomon when it comes to edifying the temple. There were thirty thousand Israelites working in the temple! A hundred and fifty three thousand Lebanese servants were hired for the work of the temple! What a movement! In the days of Zerubbabel there were hardly forty something thousand men. And Ezra, with difficulty, found 38 Levites. Do you see the difference?
The work of restoration is almost invisible to the human eyes.

It is the work of a remnant and not of all the people

Fifth principle: Those in charge of carrying out the work of the restoration are a remnant and not all the people. The word remnant appears many times in the Old Testament, and here in Ezra, in Nehemiah, in Zachariah, this word has much meaning to it. One thousand seven hundred are nothing compared with a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand or five hundred thousand, but they are the ones who took on this tremendous work. The others were in Babylon. They had settled down, they were comfortable, they had houses, businesses, they had become expert farmers and very successful merchants, like they are even today. On the other hand, these few who went to Jerusalem had to pay a sacrificial price, because to be remnant, dear brothers, means paying a price.

The majority of believers can fall asleep if they want, they can be those foolish virgins, or even Laodicea, sleeping in its lukewarmness; but the remnant must be standing, it must be awake, and must have not only oil in its lamps, but also in its vessels. That means paying a price. Brother, do you want to be part of that remnant? Then, you will have to get used to the cross. The cross has precise the form, made for your heart, and will have to enter in and divide it. It is the only way.

However, in spite of the small numbers, the house of God was restored and the walls were rebuilt. The Messiah, therefore, could come. There would be a city -Bethlehem - where he was born; and Nazareth would exist so that he could be raised. And in order for that to be made possible, a few weak and underestimated Jews -to human eyes - had to walk for four or five months through the desert, in order to get to the land that awaited them.

Dear brothers, in order for Christ to come, the church has to be restored, and in order for that to be possible, the remnant has to be mobilized! May our eyes be opened by the Lord to see the importance of the remnant, despite being small and weak, doing the work that the church as a whole cannot carry out.

Not a single leader, but several

Sixth: There is not a single leader heading the restoration, but several. And these several individuals, as we already said, are weak.

In contemporary Christianity we are very accustomed, every time that there is a Christian movement somewhere, to say, almost as a law of inertia: "And who is the leader?" Then, we feel privileged if at some moment we can get to know the leader and shake his hand. We feel honored: he is the leader! Behind him there are thousands of people.

But, dear brothers, that is not the biblical pattern. The biblical pattern is not Peter, but "Peter and the eleven." Nor is it only Peter and the eleven. There is Paul, and Silas. They are teams of men. The pyramidal model, in which there is one man on top, and all are subject to him and he is subject to no-one, is a model according to the Kingdom of the earth. "But among you", the Lord said, "it will not be this way, but whosoever would be first among you shall be your servant." But how difficult, to our structured mind, to understand the ways of God; they are too high, we cannot understand them. We think that if there is no leader, it will fall apart. But when we have really seen the church, and when the church is really working, it doesn't matter if such and such a person is not there: this is the church, and the Lord is amid it, and it won't be moved! And if one person is not present, the other one people are. It is a body!

May the Lord help us to dismantle our systems, and to realize that in the human body there is no "super member", there is no "star member", but many members who serve the body.

How is the humility of a leader shown? Not if he speaks slowly, or that he appears humble. No. Do you know in what way it is shown? In his subjection to others, in how he submits to the body. The most critical moment in the life of a leader who desires to be humble will be when he must obey others against his own will, when he must accept the advice of others even though he doesn't agree, and what's more, when he has to accept the discipline of the church even though he finds it unjust. This will prove if there is a broken vessel, or simply a leader who wants to do things his way and that all obey him, while he obeys nobody.

May the Lord help us to see that in the church there is no such thing as a pyramid, but rather we are all equally important, that we all have to serve according to our measure of faith, to our location, our talents, and that we all are servants and not masters.

Those men were weak. Have you noticed that Joshua and Zerubbabel -even though one was a priest and the other was the king's grandson - after laying the foundation of the temple, stopped building? They were frightened, they left the work, and they began to bring wood from the mountains to build their own houses. They made beautiful houses, but the temple only had the foundation stone laid.

That class of men, like Zerubbabel and Joshua that are discouraged, that get tired, that give up, yes, that class of men, those Peters who deny the Lord at a certain time, they are the ones that God uses for His purposes, because first He makes sure that they die, die to their ideas, to their vainglory, to all the things that they esteemed precious... Yes, the leaders of the restoration are broken men, emptied of themselves.

The will of God is the recovery of the plural, shared ministry, of mutual subjection, of the descending of mountains and the raising of valleys.

Diverse occupations that are supplemented

Seventh and last principle: Among the leaders a diversity of occupations can be observed that complement one another.

You will notice that during the first return went Zerubbabel, the governor and Joshua, the priest. Then Haggai and Zachariah, the prophets, were added. The second return was headed up by Ezra, a scribe. In the third went Nehemiah, the governor, a man who administered very well, with other priests and Levites. Each one of them contributed something, and all complemented one another.

The same happens in the restoration of the church. Ephesians 4:11 shows us 4 ministries from the word that, although they have a specific function, they work in a team. Each one of them contributes something to the perfection of the saints, but none is self-sufficient. The evangelist cannot do what the teacher does, the teacher cannot do what the prophet does, the prophet cannot do what the pastor does, the pastor cannot do what the apostle does.

Dear prophets, pastors, apostles, we all have a wealth; yes, but we also all have a tremendous limitation. I am tremendously limited. And I fear that you are also.

The return of the second captivity

Well, those are the seven principles of the return from the captivity in the VI century before Christ. Now, in these twenty centuries, from century I to the XX century, Israel has been scattered all over the world. However, God's purpose is to gather Israel; first to give them the earth, to constitute them as a nation, to recover Jerusalem as the capital and to recover the place of the temple so that it is restored.

These things that had to happen to Israel seemed impossible until the year 1947, but in the year 48 they began to be completed very rapidly. First was the State of Israel, then in the year 67, another great advancement occurred, when Jerusalem was recovered in the War of the Six Days, and later on, in the 90's, when the Jews from various conflictive parts of the world were allowed to return to Israel.

A restoring movement, of reuniting, has begun. And now there are struggles for the place of the temple, for the construction of the Third Temple. This has to do with the contemporary history of Israel.

But we said that Israel is a figure of the church, so what does it speak to us of? There are at least three things to be said.

Lessons from the current Israel

One: The unity of the people of God is an impossible goal for man, but possible for God. What happened to Israel was impossible for man, but God did it. God moved all that had to be moved, and it is still happening today as we can see. Likewise, the unity of the church is something that contravenes all logic and its whole history. However, God has purposed to do it, and He will.

The dispersion of Israel showed us the dispersion of the church. The reunification of Israel speaks to us of the reunification of the church. We are seeing it here; you are an example of that. There are thousands of movements of dispersion; but only one, two of reunification. Will there be three? Everything says that there will not, but God says Yes! We will believe the Lord!

Two: The good land is the focus of unity. The land of Israel is the one that today attracts Jews from all parts of the world; all want to go to Jerusalem and Israel. Likewise Christ is the good land. Wherever Christ occupies the throne, there is perfect unity there.

What do we have to do then? What is the necessary step to take? We have to rediscover ourselves in Christ, we have to preach Christ, we have to give Christ His church. We have to give up our dreams and personal ambitions, because we all have to come to Christ. He is the center of unity; He is the imam that attracts us. The good land is the focus of unity.

Three: Unity requires maturity as a support point. Let us look at the Jews. These Jews that have returned to Israel in the last decades come from diverse countries, from diverse cultural backgrounds and colors. It seems incredible. But what are they doing? They are learning how to live amid those differences and with those differences. The differences between them are not able to break the strongest bond that unites them: they are Jewish, and that is their land. The differences are never as great as that which unites us.

Let us learn from the Jews. They are learning how to live in that heterogeneity, in that diversity; they know that if they fight one other they are lost; they know that if they are divided, their enemies will take everything. And what characteristic can describe that bearing with one another among the Jews? Maturity!

As the children of God reach maturity, unity will be possible. Unity, although it is certainly a spiritual act achieved by Christ on the cross, requires of us that we believe that act and that we take steps toward unity.

Maturity will allow us to be dead to our traditions, to our history, to our doctrinal bias, to be found in Christ as "one new man." It will enable us to bear with those who still don't see enough, so that they also come to perfect unity.

Copyright © AGUAS VIVAS | CHILE 2004