In my current church context we use the language of house and home to talk about Church. It captures the sense of right relationship to God as Father, community with brothers and sisters and our own responsibility to one another beautifully. Phrases like build the house or God is building a home (taken from The Message translation of Ephesians 2:19) are common. It is a poetic image which reminds us that we are not just part of an organisation or movement, but adopted children of the household of the living God.
Photo by Ali Köse on Unsplash
The imagery of building a house crops up relatively often in the New Testament. Perhaps most well known is Jesus’ usage of this terminology to explain how we are to build our lives upon his teaching:
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”
Matthew 7:24-27
Our lives are the house, and the way of Christ is the firm foundation. When we build on him we will not fall and be destroyed but endure. His word is life and redemption.
The house we build, then, is built upon these teachings of Christ. The apostle Paul tells us that the foundation is laid – the apostles and the prophets are the foundation, and Christ is the cornerstone which holds it all together (Ephesians 2:20). This is referring to the global Church, the worldwide house which is built for the Lord. The foundation then is the revelation and teaching given to the apostles and prophets, men like Paul and Peter and John, revelation received directly from Christ and the Holy Spirit. It is the literal word of the Lord, and we are called to build on that foundation, not establish a new one.
We would therefore expect the house built on this foundation to look, feel, and sound like the New Testament. We would expect to hear the Gospel, for redemption and repentance to be central, for generosity and kindness and compassion in abundance. One would expect to experience community, family and brotherhood in this house. There would be worship, in spirit and in truth, directed to and solely focused on God. Baptisms and communion, healing and restoration, the markers of this house are numerous and clearly presented in our scriptures. It is a picture of heaven on earth, the kingdom of God inaugurated in Christ and being established by his redeemed people.
For many, many Christians, that is true of the house of the Lord. And even though our humanity gets in the way, we persist in laying down our lives to build this house out of the joy of our salvation.
Here’s a question: if the Devil builds a house, what would it look like? The apostle John warns us in 1 John 1:18, “Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come.” He later says in 4:1, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.” The New Testament Church was already facing the issue of a counterfeit faith, a faith which proclaimed a Jesus who was not the risen Lord. This Jesus was powerless to save or redeem because he was the opposite of everything the Lord Jesus is – the antichrist.
Jesus speaks of himself as the Good Shepherd in John 10 and contrasts what he gives to us with that of a thief, saying, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.” Historically we have attributed this as a description of the Devil, the enemy of God and his people. While I don’t think this text is exclusively referring to him, I don’t see an issue with us understanding him to be anything but a thief, killer and destroyer.
The apostle Peter warns us in 1 Peter 5:8, “Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” It is a sobering reminder that we must be alert and watchful, and that the enemy is very much active in this world. He seeks to corrupt that which God has made, which is good, and leave it broken and in tatters.
So we have a devil, this idea of antichrist and false prophets. All of this indicates a terrifying fact: the enemy of God not only corrupts what God has made, he counterfeits what God has and is doing in creation.
Back in South Africa, counterfeit money is a big problem. Whenever we paid for groceries at a specific shop, I remember the tellers holding the notes up to the light to look for the special mark which denoted an authentic note. I have no idea how accurate that was but I can tell you, it is really hard to tell a counterfeit note from an authentic one. When something is counterfeit it looks and feels the same, but it is missing the authenticity which gives it intrinsic value. Notes are just paper with images on them. Yet an authentic note is actually worth something, because it has a value somebody authorised to do so has granted it.
The work of the enemy is similar in this world. Antichrists and false prophets seek to corrupt the work of God by producing a counterfeit faith which looks and feels like authentic Christianity, but is missing the one thing that gives it any value – Jesus.
When the devil builds a house, you can bet that it will look and feel like the house of the Lord. It can have all the right practices and all the right words yet be powerless to facilitate redemption.
So what does the house the Devil built look like? For starters, it can contain everything the Church contains which is not necessary for salvation. It will play to and appease our desire for community and identity. It will offer relationships, which may or may not be sincere, that shape and form us. It will present a version of the truth which empowers us to make our own decisions and take back our authority, robbed from us by the difficulties of this life. It will make us feel known and appreciated and loved, and it may even tell us that we are loved by God, just as we are. Because if God loves me just as I am, and I love me just as I am too, who do I need to to change for? Why do I need to be regenerated? God thinks I’m perfect. So do I. That’s great news.
The house the Devil builds will be a house which is active in working toward a better neighbourhood, city and world without the redemptive power of Christ. It will use nothing more than social action to enact change and promise that through our collective effort we can build a better future in which everyone is equal and respected. It fails to point out that the reason we need to build this better future is because of our fallen, sinful nature, the antidote to which is only found in the regeneration of the Holy Spirit upon salvation. Fallen creatures cannot redeem a fallen creation.
The house the Devil builds will elevate self. It will emphasise our uniqueness and how special we are. It will create, encourage and foster worship of self. The apostle Paul noted this in Romans 1:25, “they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator”. God is good only so long as he gives us want we want in this house. He is reduced from Creator to servant, existing to grant every whim and desire our fallen nature can conjure up. Glorifying God, suffering for Christ, dying to self is laid aside in favour of a counterfeit faith which puts us at the centre of our own world.
Time and again we have seen this house raised up. It has gone by different names over centuries but always has the glorification of mankind, often by God himself, as its mission and purpose.
The enemy masquerades as goodness and light. He is a pretender, a liar, a tempter. He offers us what we think we need, appealing to the deepest parts of our fallen nature.
Therefore this house is most likely to be identified by the following characteristics:
- elevation and worship of self,
- no Gospel and no repentance,
- an over emphasis on self identity,
- a reduction of God from Almighty Creator to genie in a bottle.
That is a counterfeit Christianity. It is Christianity without Christ and without the Gospel. When we don’t have either of those, we cannot have salvation and regeneration, which – according to the apostle Paul, one of those foundations on which the house of the Lord is built – is the only answer to the state humanity finds itself in.
Jesus can be whatever we make him, and there are many Jesus’ peddled in the world. Only one Jesus can save us. Only one Jesus can redeem us. He tells us who he is and we receive him by faith.
Make no mistake, just as God builds his house, the Devil is building his. It looks and feels like the house of the Lord but it is powerless to save. Be aware; be sober minded. Establish your life on the firm foundation of the prophets and the apostles, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone.
Build the house of the Lord.
