We have already seen that in the church, as originally constituted,
organization, authority, and government proceeded from the divine and
not from the human. The agents whom Christ used in performing his
work and in overseeing his church were called and endowed by the
Holy Spirit, and this divine endowment was the real basis of their
authority and responsibility. Paul's authority and responsibility as
an apostle, for example, was not positional authority, or authority
proceeding from a certain position to which he had been appointed or
elected. His authority was divine, and out of that divine authority
grew his positional responsibility as the "apostle of the Gentiles."
Over and over he affirmed that he was an apostle, "not of men, neither
by man, but by Jesus Christ" (Gal. 1:1). On the same principle the
position, work, and responsibility of all the members of the body of
Christ grew out of the gifts and qualifications possessed by them, and
thus the church was divinely organized and divinely governed.

[Sidenote: Original bond of union]

The bonds which united primitive Christians in one body were
essentially moral and spiritual. Christ was their ever-living and
ever-acting head. Their life proceeded from him, and they were all
one in him. While those living in widely separated districts
consulted together concerning matters of general concern, or united
in cooperative efforts to accomplish common tasks, there is not the
slightest evidence that there was an external human organization
of the primitive church--either sectionally, nationally, or
universally--centralized under a human headship of the administrative,
legislative, and judicial kind. Christ was the head of the general
church, the head of all the local churches, the head of all the