IX. The Benefits of Independence

It was a masterstroke of God’s manifold wisdom to ordain the practice of the local churches. Watchman Nee closes chapter four of The Normal Christian Church Life by enumerating the three main reasons that the locality as the basis and boundary of a local church is such a benefit and protection to the Body of Christ. First, the independent local administration of each church safeguards the local church from the unscriptural development of a federation of churches under the control of one person or one local church:

The divine method of making locality the boundary line between the different churches has various obvious advantages:

If each church is locally governed, and all authority is in the hands of the local elders, there is no scope for an able and ambitious false prophet to display his organizing genius by forming the different companies of believers into one vast federation, and then satisfy his ambition by constituting himself its head. Rome could never sway the power it does today had the churches of God maintained their local ground. Where churches are not affiliated, and where local authority is in the hands of local elders, a pope is an impossibility. Where there are only local churches, there can be no Roman Church. It is the federation of different companies of believers that has brought such evils as dabbling in politics into the Church of God. There is power in a federated “church,” but it is carnal power, not spiritual. God’s thought for His Church is that she should be like a mustard seed on earth, full of vitality, yet scarcely noticed. It is federation that has brought the Church of today to the state of Thyatira. The failure of Protestantism is that it has substituted organized churches—State and Dissenting—for the Church of Rome, instead of returning to the divinely-ordained local churches. (69-70)

Second, the proper local character of the church limits the spread of heresy or erroneous doctrine:

Further, if the churches retain their local character, the spread of heresy and error will be avoided, for if a church is local, heresy and error will be local too. Rome is a splendid illustration of the reverse side of this truth. The prevalence of Romish error is because of Romish federation. The sphere of the federated churches is vast; consequently the error is widespread. It is a comparatively simple matter to quarantine error in a local church, but to isolate error in a vast federation of churches is quite another proposition. (70)

Finally, and most significantly, the local boundary of the church allows no sectarianism or denominationalism to develop, thus preserving the oneness of the local church as the testimony of the unique universal Church:

The greatest advantage of having locality as the boundary of the churches is that it precludes all possibility of sects. You may have your special doctrines and I mine, but as long as we are out to maintain the scriptural character of the churches by making locality the only dividing line between them, then it is impossible for us to establish any church for the propagation of our particular beliefs. As long as a church preserves its local character, it is protected against denominationalism, but as soon as it loses that, it is veering in the direction of sectarianism. A believer is sectarian when he belongs to anyone or anything apart from the Lord and the locality. Sects and denominations can only be established when the local character of the church is destroyed. (70-71)